PGNiG plans cost cuts to offset gas trade losses

WARSAW (Reuters) - Poland's gas monopoly PGNiG PGN.WA plans to cut expenses and sell non-core assets to offset the rising cost of Russian gas imports and to ready itself for a planned freeing of central and Eastern Europe's largest gas market.

The state-controlled group's chief executive told Reuters in an interview that it would publish a two-year strategy in October assuming plans to cut costs, consolidate its units and spin off assets.

"We must put a cap on costs to account for an unfavorable gas tariff, the necessity to invest and reduce debt," Grazyna Piotrowska-Oliwa said.

(Reporting by Pawel Bernat and Maciej Onoszko, editing by William Hardy)