PGNiG expects to extract 4.6 billion metres of gas in 2008 and 5.0 billion metres in 2009 compared with 4.3 billion last year, it said in a statement on Tuesday. The company blamed the change on several factors, including issues related to the completion of its investment program and changes in the law. Our view: PGNiG originally targeted 5.5 billion cubic meters of natural gas production for 2008 while we have forecasted 5.33bcm. The new official target of the company is 0.87 bcm lower than our estimate for 2008 and by 0.6bcm for 2009. Assuming that the delay in the production does not affect our forecast for 2010 and beyond, PGNiG net earnings can come some US$ 160m lower in these two years, according to our model (here we calculate with US$ 85 per thousand cubic meter production cost of high methane gas and US$ 220 selling price, which exclude storage and transportation fees.) Present value of this sum is close to US$ 140m, or 1.2% of PGNiG’s current market cap. We expect negative market reaction to the news and look forward the company’s explanation on the delay.)