Poland’s PGNiG eyes Iran’s oil and gas market

WARSAW: Poland’s state-run gas distributor PGNiG is looking at various options in oil and gas exploration and production in Iran once sanctions on the country are lifted, PGNiG’s CEO said.

“We are interested in the Iranian market (...) and we are considering various business configurations there. We have an office in Iran and are at the stage of examining that market,” Mariusz Zawisza said in an interview. He reiterated that PGNiG was considering buying production assets in Norway, the United States and Canada that would help it boost own oil and gas output.

Zawisza said the 100 million euros that PGNiG paid France’s Total for stakes in several Norwegian oilfields last year could be a reference point for future acquisitions.

PGNiG, which is also interested in buying heating power plants in Poland, sees 2016 investment as “comparable” to this year’s, the CEO said. Earlier this year PGNiG expected 2015 capex at around 4.3 billion zlotys ($1.08 billion).

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The CEO said talks with Russia’s Gazprom, which is PGNiG’s biggest gas supplier, on reducing prices in its long-term contract had reached a “mature” phase.

The companies started negotiations in November last year and in May PGNiG filed with the Stockholm Arbitration Tribunal, looking to change the pricing of the contract in the face of falling oil and gas prices. “I assume that there is a real possibility of concluding the talks with Gazprom. Last time the negotiations also lasted several months. Now it has been a year since we started the talks and this is their mature phase,” Zawisza said. —Reuters