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Poland Freight Transport Report Q3 2008Published by: Business Monitor International Published: Aug. 18, 2008 - 50 Pages Table of Contents
AbstractVarious Polish officials maintained their opposition to the EUR7.4bn (US$11.5bn) Russian-German Nord Stream gas pipeline project during Q208. The project is designed to pump gas directly from Russia, across the Baltic Sea, to Germany, bypassing the current overland route through Poland and other countries. In June deputy economy minister Marcin Korolec said that the project was a threat to the environment and to sea transport, and could undermine the viability of current overland supplies to Europe via the Yamal pipeline. In the same month Prime Minister Donald Tusk insisted that land transport would be much cheaper and more effective. Speaking after a summit of Prime Ministers of the Baltic Sea States held in Riga, Latvia, Tusk was quoted saying that ‘I am sure that talks with all European partners will continue to find out how to optimise decisions on gas transport and the environment’.Despite this Wingas, one of the companies involved in building the new pipeline, said in May that the project might bring benefits for Poland. Wingas is a 50-50 joint venture between Germany’s Wintershall and Russia’s Gazprom. It noted that the pipeline is due to make its landfall near Greifswald in Eastern Germany, and that Opal, one of several connecting pipelines that will run inside Germany, will actually run alongside the frontier with Poland for long stretches, opening up the opportunity to connect with the Polish system. ‘This would make Poland a part of the western European gas infrastructure and could also transport gas which it buys from North Sea producers or western European trading hubs via German pipelines into Poland’ Wingas said. Poland faces a series of key decisions affecting its status as a transit country for oil and gas pumped through pipelines. As a traditional conduit for Russian oil and gas moving west to European consumers, Nord Stream has to be counted as a definite threat. To the south, it sees an opportunity: in alliance with Ukraine, it aims to reverse the current flow of the Odessa-Brody oil pipeline, opening up a route for non-Russian Caspian oil to be pumped through Poland up to Gdansk and onwards to Western consumers. Overall, it is a complicated picture, but in our newly released Poland Freight Transport Report, BMI concludes that oil and gas pipeline throughput will grow by an average of 4.9% per annum in 2008-2012, a little down on the preceding period. We think there will be something of a transition period as Poland tries to diversify its oil and gas supplies away from excessive dependence on Russia. Various factors underpin our forecast. While there is a high degree of volatility in what could be called ‘pipeline geopolitics’, we think that it remains in Warsaw’s long-term interest to strike a deal with Russia, on the one hand, while diversifying pragmatically on the other. Poland’s own economy is expected to grow at an average of 4.6% per annum over the next five years, providing a base line of energy demand that will also contribute to pipeline usage. Our overall forecast for freight carried in Poland is for continuing moderate recovery based on the country’s good economic growth rate. The transport sector still has to play catch-up, however, given infrastructure limitations in road and rail. We expect annual average growth in freight carried across all modes, measured in million tonne km (mntkm), of 6.3% during the forecast period of 2008-2012. We see the best performing sector being airfreight, which with annual average growth of 9.2%, will benefit from the global recovery in the aviation industry, the spread of low-cost airlines and increasing integration with European Union (EU) partners. Plans to privatise Poland’s national carrier, LOT Polish Airlines, may also attract new investment. In maritime freight we are forecasting that new investment in Gdansk port will feed through. Freight traffic carried by ship will grow by an annual average of 6.9%. Road haulage will grow by 6.4% per annum. Here, we think strong and growing demand for haulage will continue to be held back by the slow rate of improvement of Poland’s highway network. Finally, rail freight will grow by an annual average of 5.4%, as the process s of reform and deregulation gradually begins to take hold. Poland has a composite score of 63.4 (out of a theoretical maximum of 70) in our freight rating. The country scores well on long-term political and economic risk, and on the regulatory and competitive environment. On the other hand, freight transport growth and infrastructure are areas of relative weakness. BMI forecasts that the total value of transport and communications GDP will rise to US$52.3bn in nominal terms by 2012, representing 8.4% of Poland’s GDP. The transport and communications sector employed 823,000 people, or 6.0% of the labour force, last year. We see that figure staying roughly constant to 2011. Get Full Details About This Report >> |
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