ELGC2025 in Katowice a success

The Katowice Congress drew more than 1,200 participants from 65 countries, 92 sponsors and exhibitors and 46 speakers, a scale unprecedented for the LPG sector. Alongside Poland, the best represented countries were Italy, France, Germany, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Belgium, the United States, Norway and Portugal. Delegates came even from countries such as Australia, Oman, Kenya, Peru, Singapore and Malaysia.

The Polish edition of the Congress underlined the importance of the sector for the Polish economy. The event was held under the honorary patronage of the Marshal of the Sejm, the Polish Presidency of the Council of the European Union, the Minister of Industry, the Minister of Agriculture, the Marshal of the Śląskie Voivodeship, the President of the National Fund for Environmental Protection and Water Management, the President of the Office of Technical Inspection (UDT) and the Director of Transport Technical Supervision.

On 21 May the Congress was opened by Markus Dreier, the new President of Liquid Gas Europe, with a strong message on the need to preserve technology neutrality in Europe’s energy transition. Opening remarks to the Congress delegates were also delivered by Ewa Gawryś-Osińska, President of the Polish Liquefied Gas Organization (POGP) and CEO of Gaspol.

Next, Ewa Abramiuk-Lété, Director General of LGE, read out to the delegates a letter from the Marshal of the Sejm of the Republic of Poland, Szymon Hołownia. In his message the Marshal underlined the importance of liquefied gas in an affordable transition for hard-to-decarbonize areas – including rural areas – and its role in combating energy poverty.

The availability of liquefied gas and the speed with which it can be deployed make it not only a means of delivering climate targets, but also a tool for fighting energy poverty and social exclusion. It is available in areas without developed gas infrastructure. Outside the cities live people whose access to cheap, low-emission energy is more difficult.

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The opening session was also addressed by Wojciech Wrochna, Secretary of State at the Ministry of Industry, and Krzysztof Bolesta, Secretary of State at the Ministry of Climate and Environment. Both ministers underlined the importance of moving away from supplies of raw materials from Russia in the face of three years of aggression against Ukraine, the successful implementation of the embargo on Russian gas, and the flagship initiative of the Polish Presidency of the Council of the European Union, that is the REPowerEU roadmap, which is to bring imports of energy carriers from the Russian Federation to a complete halt. The country’s energy security and solidarity with Ukraine will remain important priorities of Polish policy for the years to come. Krzysztof Bolesta also stressed the significant role of renewable gases in hard-to-decarbonize sectors in the National Energy and Climate Plan.

At the end of the opening session Leszek Pietraszek, Deputy Marshal of the Śląskie Voivodeship, welcomed the delegates to Katowice and invited them to engage with the dynamic industrial ecosystem of Silesia.

The key themes of the Congress from a Polish perspective

One of the leading themes of the Congress was the versatility of LPG in the economy – in particular in heat generation, and also in the transport and agriculture sectors. Discussing individual applications, the Congress experts pointed to the ways in which the industry can respond to the energy needs of particular niches and support society in the energy transition.

Ireneusz Popiół, CEO of Chemet SA, spoke about the hard-to-replace role of gas in heating the housing stock in rural and suburban Poland. He also pointed to the turn toward affordability that can be observed in European energy policy at the current stage of the energy transition. Now that the system has reached its present level of saturation with renewable energy sources, what is needed is to consolidate the achievements of decarbonization and to plan the next steps in a way that keeps the cost of the process for citizens in check. Ireneusz Popiół quoted the new German Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy, Katherina Reiche, who assessed after taking office that:

the systemic risks and the costs of the energy transition (in Germany) have been underestimated, and the country needs a review of its energy policy, in order to align the pace of renewable expansion with the capacity to expand the power grid.

In another panel, Paweł Baraniuk, Vice-President of AC SA, presented the role of autogas in road transport in Poland. Poland has become the largest autogas market in Europe despite the absence of state support instruments. The growth of the Polish market therefore contrasts with, for instance, Italy, which in 2009-10 offered subsidies for the purchase of autogas-powered cars and since 2024 has supported conversions of gasoline engines to LPG with EUR 400. He was seconded by Simone Casadei of the Italian institute Innovhub Stazioni Sperimentali per l’Industria, which carries out research on the environmental impact of motor vehicles. In 11 of the 17 vehicle life-cycle criteria analyzed, LPG-powered cars are less harmful to the environment than electric ones – although they lag behind the latter in greenhouse gas emissions. Autogas-powered cars offer the greatest value in reducing particulate emissions, the most important component of smog.

The second day of the Congress opened with a session entitled Navigating the Liquid Gas Market in Poland and Central Europe, moderated by Bartosz Kwiatkowski, Director General of POGP. In his introduction to the panel, Bartosz Kwiatkowski read out a letter from the President of the National Fund for Environmental Protection and Water Management, Dorota Zawadzka-Stępniak.

In the course of the discussion Szymon Araszkiewicz (Information Market) presented a picture of the Polish market after the embargo on Russian LPG entered into force at the beginning of 2025, while Stanislav Batraczenko (ULPGA) showed how the ongoing defensive war against Russia has affected the Ukrainian LPG market – in particular through the deterioration of the price relationship between liquefied gas and liquid fuels and a fall in autogas use accompanied by growth in the cylinder segment. The size of the Ukrainian market has fallen by 40% in three years, yet liquefied gas has once again proved its value as a strategic fuel useful in humanitarian crises and in areas without functioning energy infrastructure (more on this subject can be found in the latest publication of the World Liquid Gas Association). Later in the discussion Paweł Bielski (Polski Gaz) discussed the steps taken by Polish companies that made it possible to prepare for the effects of the sanctions, while also drawing attention to the challenges still facing the domestic liquefied gas market – in particular those arising from regulatory and administrative barriers. Svetoslav Benchev (BPGA) then presented the situation on the Bulgarian market, a sister market to the Polish one, with particular emphasis on the transport segment. As in Poland, the development of electromobility in Bulgaria is running into a range of cost and infrastructure barriers, which is why autogas has been recognized as a fuel important for decarbonization in the sustainable mobility strategy. Janusz Starościk (SPIUG), in turn, took on the issue of disinformation about an alleged European Union ban on the use of gas boilers after 2030, as well as the so-called gold-plating of European law, that is, implementing European law in an excessively restrictive manner that goes beyond the expectations of the European Commission. This is often the case in Poland, including in the matter of the state’s complete withdrawal from co-financing installations of gas boilers. SPIUG cooperates with POGP on efforts to neutralize the disinformation appearing in the media about supposed bans on the use of gas.

In the session summarizing the Congress, alongside LPG market experts, the speakers included the Chief Economist of Bank Gospodarstwa Krajowego Mateusz Walewski and the head of the climate and energy team at the Polish Economic Institute Kamil Lipiński. They briefly summarized the conclusions of the Congress, including those on the potential for further use of the fuel in the Polish economy.

Among the important themes that came up in Katowice, it is also worth mentioning the outlook for the development of production and commercialization of renewable liquefied gas within the European legal framework, as well as the problem of the limited support of member states for the deployment of clean gas that would replace the imported product of fossil origin. Ewa Abramiuk-Lété presented at the Congress the conclusions of the latest report commissioned by Liquid Gas Europe, Outlook for the Production of Renewable Liquid Gases in 2040 and 2050, while Koichi Tanaka presented the demonstration project on the use of renewable dimethyl ether launched in Japan in 2021, together with the working group set up by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry and the fuel industry. Jordan McCollum of Gas Energy Australia invited interested parties to cooperate on a project for a comprehensive analysis of the costs of replacing gas of fossil origin with renewable fuel.

The European Liquid Gas Congress in Katowice was accompanied by the celebration of the 80th anniversary of Chemet SA of Tarnobrzeg, today the leading and most modern European manufacturer of pressure tanks and rail tank cars for the carriage of gases.

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