Polski Koncern Naftowy ORLEN SA

Polish billionaire Michal Solowow is bringing several prominent business leaders into his small nuclear reactor venture, SGE SA, as Poland looks for alternatives to coal and prepares for rising electricity demand, Bloomberg News reported Wednesday. The new shareholders include InPost founder Rafal Brzoska, ElevenLabs CEO Mati Staniszewski and Grupa Maspex CEO Krzysztof Pawinski, with Polish news outlet XYZ reporting the investors plan to commit about 500 million zloty, or $130 million, for their stakes. SGE holds the rights to deploy GE Vernova Hitachi Nuclear Energy's BWRX-300 reactor technology in Poland, and the private capital commitment marks another step toward commercial deployment of small modular reactors in Europe. SGE previously targeted 2030 for its first reactor but has pushed the expected startup to 2032, while Poland's government plans to bring the country's first large conventional nuclear plant online in 2036 and is considering SMRs as another component of its future energy mix. Solowow also said SGE and state-controlled energy company Orlen have reached an agreement concerning their joint venture to develop Poland's first SMR, potentially resolving previous disagreements over control and responsibilities, though he did not provide details.

International energy terminal operator KN Energies has joined the Baltic Energy Initiative, an ORLEN-led partnership of 14 energy companies and organizations from nine Northern and Central European countries. The initiative aims to strengthen regional energy security, infrastructure resilience, and competitiveness through joint projects. Priorities include offshore wind, LNG and bioLNG market integration, a regional hydrogen market, carbon transport and storage, and small modular reactors. The partners will also cooperate on critical infrastructure protection and seek EU and international funding. Signatories include Eesti Energia, Enefit, Fortum, DNV Energy Systems, Topsoe, Siemens Energy, Adven, Steady Energy, P2X Solutions, Latvenergo, Gasgrid Finland, and Vestas.

Equinor has signed a three-year agreement to supply crude oil to Poland's ORLEN from the Johan Sverdrup field. The deal takes effect at the beginning of September and covers annual deliveries of between 5 million and more than 9 million tonnes of crude, with the option for ORLEN to receive other Norwegian Continental Shelf grades. Financial terms were not disclosed. At the upper end of the range, Norwegian crude could account for as much as one-quarter of ORLEN's annual oil requirements. The crude will be supplied to ORLEN refineries in Poland, Lithuania and the Czech Republic.

The ORLEN Group has acquired a 216MW hybrid renewable energy project in the municipality of Kazimierz Biskupi in the Greater Poland region. The project will combine an 180MW solar photovoltaic farm and a 36MW wind farm, with an expected annual electricity output of around 315GW-hours, enough to supply nearly 143,000 households. Polish entities ONDE and Neo Energy Group sold the associated special-purpose vehicles to ORLEN New Power, the group's onshore renewables division, with ONDE serving as general contractor and Neo Energy Group continuing to manage construction. Construction is expected to start in the third quarter of 2026, with first energisation in early 2028 and commercial operations in the second quarter of that year. The facility will operate alongside the ORLEN Group's Kleczew Solar & Wind project, forming one of the largest onshore renewable clusters in Poland with a total planned capacity of 485MW.