Gas has flowed from Slovakia to Poland over the past two days, a rare occurrence since the commissioning of the pipeline, as demand in the latter surged on the back of plunging temperatures.
More than 13GWh flowed to Poland from Slovakia at the Vyrava interconnection point on 18 February, and nearly 23GWh on 19 February, transmission system data show. These were the first receipts in either direction at Vyrava since 22 April 2024, as the pipeline has been little-utilised since its commissioning in November 2022. In addition, there was nearly 40GWh of inflows from Lithuania, the highest for any day since 3 December. This helped boost Polish net imports to 669GWh on 19 February, the highest for any day since 31 December.
Stronger imports have been needed as a result of higher domestic consumption caused by plunging temperatures. Overnight lows in Warsaw began to dip below the long-term average on 8 February, but gas demand did not start to significantly increase until 10 February, when minimum temperatures in the capital dropped to minus 7.7°C. Polish high-calorie consumption has since jumped to 903 GWh/d on 10-19 February from 782 GWh/d earlier in the month and 768 GWh/d in January. Demand peaked at 949GWh on 17 February, the highest for any day since 10 January 2024, and not far from the all-time high of 1TWh on 18 January 2021. On 17 February, overnight lows in Warsaw dropped to minus 14.3°C, by far the lowest for any day this winter.
In addition to imports from Slovakia and Lithuania in recent days, there were net inflows from Germany at Mallnow of 55 GWh/d on 15-17 February, which is also rare given the expensive nature of these receipts. Because the Yamal-Europe pipeline is not yet fully integrated into the national transmission system, importers have to pay a double tariff to bring gas in at Mallnow and then out into the domestic grid, making imports through this route particularly expensive and uncompetitive in most cases. That said, these flows halted again on 18-19 February.
Poland also imported at maximum capacity from the Baltic Pipe each day over 15-19 February, while LNG sendout from Swinoujscie surged to 257 GWh/d out of a maximum capacity of 264 GWh/d on 18-19 February after the arrival of a Qatari cargo a day earlier (see February imports graph). Strong imports from almost all directions have been driven by large premiums on the Polish prompt compared with neighbouring markets, with the day-ahead price on the Polish TGE exchange holding €4.23/MWh higher than Argus' Slovak day-ahead market on 1-19 February, and a larger €5.45/MWh and €6.32/MWh to the Czech and German markets, respectively (see price graph).
Despite the cold snap, Polish firms still exported 25 GWh/d toward Ukraine since 8 February, with flows rising as high as 45GWh on 19 February. Ukraine has been importing heavily from all directions as cold weather has driven storage withdrawals to near their maximum and attacks on production infrastructure have reduced domestic output.
Tightness to continue in short term
The weather is expected to remain particularly cold over the next three days, likely continuing to bolster demand, but from 24 February onward it is forecast to turn much milder.
Minimum temperatures in Warsaw were most recently forecast to reach minus 7°C on 20 February and as low as minus 9°C a day later, before climbing to minus 6°C on 23-24 February. These are all well below the 10-year average for the period of minus 4°C.
And along with the continued cold weather, upcoming unplanned maintenance at Swinoujscie will take around 61 GWh/d of the terminal's regasification capacity off line on the 23 February-12 March gas days, further tightening the market.
However, from 24 February onward minimum temperatures in Warsaw are forecast to increase significantly to around minus 1°C, and rise above freezing the next day. Overnight lows are then expected to hold above the 10-year average on each day from 24 February-6 March, which should curb heating demand, bringing consumption down and in turn requiring lower imports.
