The capacity of a planned off-shore gas storage facility will be doubled owing to growing interest in gas imports from neighbouring countries, the climate minister has announced.

Anna Moskwa told an international congress in the eastern city of Lublin that capacity at the Floating Storage and Regasification Unit (FSRU), which will be located in the Gulf of Gdansk, is to be increased to manage at least 12 billion cubic metres (bcm) of gas a year from the originally planned 6 bcm.

Moskwa told the Local Government Economic Congress and the II Three Seas Initiative Forum of Regions that the key to building energy security in Europe is the “North-South thread,” which will make use of gas terminals and connections of the Three Seas countries.

The Three Seas initiative is a project to develop transport and energy infrastructure between 12 countries lying between the Baltic, Black and Adriatic seas.

Moskwa highlighted construction of the FSRU off Gdansk, which will re-gasify Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) from gas tankers in the Baltic Sea. “We had planned it for 6 bcm (of re-gasified LNG a year – PAP),” Moskwa told the congress. “Due to growing interest from our southern neighbours, but also Ukraine, we plan to expand it to at least 12 bcm, which means a big terminal with two floating vessels.”

She added that talks are continuing with the Czech Republic and Slovakia, “to work out an eventual model of these connections, but also to prepare for building connections with Ukraine.”