Expansion of the Wierzchowice Underground Gas Storage Facility to 1.2 bcm

The expansion of the Wierzchowice Underground Gas Storage (PMG) Facility, the largest underground natural gas storage facility in Poland, operating in a depleted gas field since 1995, consisted of doubling the facility's active capacity from just under 575 million m³ to approximately 1.2 billion m³. On 3 October 2008, PGNiG SA selected the contractor: a consortium including PBG SA (leader), the Italian company Tecnimont S.p.A., the French company Sofregaz, and the Czech companies Plynostav Pardubice Holding and Plynostav – Regulace Plynu. The works were to take three years and be completed by November 2011, with the storage facility's commissioning planned for early 2012. The investment received EU co-financing of approximately PLN 503.6 million, and the planned total implementation cost was estimated at PLN 1.96 billion gross (the value of the contract with the contractor alone was approximately PLN 1.1 billion net, i.e. approximately PLN 1.3 billion gross). Implementation encountered serious problems (including the bankruptcy of the consortium leader PBG) and suffered a multi-year delay; the expanded facility began operating on 17 March 2015. The owner and investor is PGNiG SA.