The new pipeline links a gas node in the southeastern Polish village of Strachocin with a compressor station in Slovakia’s eastern town of Veľké Kapušany, Polish state news agency PAP reported.
Testing in June, approval for operation in July
“Construction work on connecting the Polish and Slovakian transmission systems has been completed,” Poland’s gas operator Gaz-System said in a statement on Thursday.
It added that “the interconnector will be test-launched in early June, with gas flowing from Poland to Slovakia and vice versa.”
The gas link will be officially approved for operation in the third quarter of this year, Gaz-System said.
The company will operate the pipeline together with Slovakia’s Eustream, the PAP news agency reported.
Up to 5.7 bn cubic metres of gas from Slovakia to Poland per year
The 167-kilometre, high-pressure interconnection is designed to bring up to 5.7 billion cubic metres of gas from Slovakia to Poland each year, officials said.
Meanwhile, it will be able to carry up to 4.7 billion cubic metres a year in the opposite direction.
The new link is part of the so-called North-South Corridor, a network of infrastructure connecting liquid natural gas (LNG) terminals on Croatia’s Krk island and in Poland’s northwestern city of Świnoujście.
Slovakia’s gas system has links to Austria, the Czech Republic and Hungary, as well as to Ukraine, reporters were told.
Independence from Russian gas
The completion of the Strachocin-Veľké Kapušany interconnector was first announced by Polish President Andrzej Duda and his Slovak counterpart Zuzana Čaputová two weeks ago.
Poland has recently also launched a new gas link with Lithuania, as it seeks alternative sources of supply to gain independence from Russian gas amid Vladimir Putin’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
Thursday is day 92 of Russia's war on Ukraine.
(pm/gs)
Source: IAR, PAP, gaz-system.pl