Poland’s state run oil and gas producer PGNiG has reported a healthy increase in its gas production for the first half of this year, helping to offset the financial hit taken from the halt in Russian gas pipeline supplies at the end of April.

PGNiG said that in the first six months of the year it produced almost 3.5 billion cubic metres of natural gas, compared with 2.34 Bcm in the same period last year.

The main source of the increase has been the expansion of the company’s assets in the Norwegian North Sea, where PGNiG’s net gas production increased four-fold to over 1.5