The first commercial cargo has arrived on Friday at Poland’s LNG import terminal under a term supply contract from Qatargas to Polish state-run importer PGNIG that was signed in March 2010. The ship unloaded over the weekend and has since departed.

The same ship, which has a cargo capacity of 210,000 m3, was used to deliver cargoes in December 2015 and February 2016 that were used to commission and test the 5bn m3/yr import terminal. Terminal owner Polskie LNG is a subsidiary of state-owned Polish gas grid operator Gaz-System. An expansion of the terminal’s capacity to 7.5bn m3/yr – equivalent to half Poland’s current gas consumption – is underway.

Poland’s Gaz-System is looking at a major redevelopment of its network to enable regasified LNG to be flowed deep into central Europe. Since the opening of Lithuania’s terminal in late 2014, and with Poland’s opened late 2015, and the prospect that one could open in Croatia later this decade, there is a stronger possibility than before that LNG could either displace traditional Russian imports in eastern Europe, or prompt Gazprom to keep its prices down in response to competition from cheap spot LNG from the world market.

PGNIG’s 1mn metric ton/yr (1.4bn m3/yr) term contract from Qatargas, however, is indexed to oil prices, and not to cheaper spot gas values.

Last month PGNIG said it also expects Norway’s Statoil to deliver a spot cargo later this week.