Polish Fuel Firm Unimot Urges Faster European Energy Transition to Curb Reliance on Imports
(Bloomberg) -- Unimot SA, one of Poland’s largest fuel companies, is urging Europe to speed up its green energy transition, warning that Middle East tensions have once again exposed the continent’s excessive reliance on imported fossil fuels.
The conflict in the Middle East, combined with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, severed Europe’s historical energy lifelines. Now, the continent “has practically no major alternative besides the US” for fuel imports, according to Adam Sikorski, co-owner and chief executive officer of Unimot.
As in the rest of the world, European fuel prices have climbed this year, forcing several nations, though not Poland, to tap into their reserves to meet demand.
For Sikorski, whose firm also makes money on electricity and gas sales, the structural deficit in European refining capacity makes rapid electrification an economic imperative.
“There is an ongoing debate in Europe about slowing down the energy transition, but I believe we should accelerate it in light of global risks,” Sikorski said in an interview. “This time, the worst-case scenario didn’t materialize and we didn’t run out of fuel, but Europe is paying a high price for its dependence on external energy sources.”
The European Union saw a push among some of its members to put less emphasis on climate goals and more on rebuilding the bloc’s industrial capacity. Still, the European Commission has doubled down, proposing higher electrification targets to reduce dependence on foreign oil and gas.
Rising profile
Unimot has aggressively expanded its footprint in Poland’s fuel market, snapping up assets spun off during the state-orchestrated merger of Grupa Lotos SA and Orlen SA earlier this decade. The Warsaw-listed company has also diversified into natural gas, renewables and asphalt, driving a revenue surge to 14.8 billion zloty ($4 billion) last year from 4.77 billion zloty in 2020.
In a milestone move this year, Unimot secured a contract to deliver crude to Germany’s PCK Raffinerie GmbH in Schwedt and booked capacity at a planned floating liquefied natural gas terminal on the Polish Baltic coast.
The Schwedt deal is highly strategic. Germany is a “very important” supplier to Poland, which relies on imports for about 40% of its fuel needs. When the German facility lost Kazakh oil deliveries in May, Berlin held talks with Warsaw to help replace the transit via the Polish port of Gdansk to sustain output.
“We are the largest, but not the only, buyer of fuel from Schwedt in Poland, which is why we have a vital interest in ensuring that this refinery is utilized to the fullest extent possible,” Sikorski said. “Today, Poland has the same amount of fuel as it did before the crisis, and this refinery is operational—which is truly important for the Polish market today.”
Poland, currently the EU’s most coal-dependent economy, is adding two new LNG terminals to ensure more diversified supplies for its growing gas-fired power plant fleet and position itself as a hub for central and eastern Europe. Unimot is one of four companies to book capacity at one of the terminals as it is gearing up to challenge Orlen’s market dominance.
“The gas market remains highly concentrated and if Poland is to become a regional gas hub, we need more competition, easier market entry for private suppliers, and open infrastructure,” Sikorski said.
However, he noted that the company will wait for global markets to “return to normal” before signing LNG import contracts.
Still, despite his vocal support for a shift toward electrification, Sikorski is holding off on building an electric-vehicle charging network at Unimot’s Avia gas stations. While Poland’s EV market is growing, it trails far behind the rest of the continent. For the time being, the CEO sees better returns in heat and power generation.
“If electromobility becomes a profitable business in the future, we might buy a charging station operator,” Sikorski said. “For now, we don’t have such plans.”
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