LNG Deliveries to Lithuania to Triple

 

Lithuania opened the floating import terminal in Klaipeda at the end of 2014 to cut its dependence on Russian energy imports.

 

Klaipedos Nafta said in a statement it has signed contracts with Lithuanian fertilizer producer Achema and gas supplier Lietuvos Duju Tiekimas (LDT).

 

It already had a deal with Lithuanian Litgas.

 

The new contracts mean that LNG tanker arrivals at the terminal will triple compared with its previous plan, the operator said.

 

The terminal said it has reserved 2.4 TWh (about 225 million cubic metres) of gas import capacities between Feb. 5 and Sept 30 for LDT, and 7.2 TWh (about 682 mcm) between Feb. 15 and Sept. 30 for Achema.

 

LDT, a subsidiary of Lithuania's state-owned energy group Lietuvos Energija said on Friday it had agreed to import around 300 mcm under a short term deal with Norway's Statoil (STO) by October.

 

Lithuanian Prime Minister Algirdas Butkevicius said last month that privately-owned Achema, the Baltic state's biggest gas consumer, had also reached a deal to buy LNG from Statoil.

 

Statoil has been already supplying liquefied gas to Litgas, another subsidiary of Lietuvos Energija, under a five-year contract signed in 2014.

 

The contract has been revised in January, with annual import volumes reduced from 540 mcm to 350 mcm, but extending its length from five to ten years.

 

Litgas sought to revise the terms as demand in the country's heat and power sector fell due to a shift from gas to biomass.

 

LDT said it had to buy gas from Statoil as its long-term contract with Gazprom expired at the end of 2015, and while it had some volumes left from the expired contracts, they were not sufficient.

 

"It wouldn't be enough for the rest of the year, and therefore we've decided to buy additional volumes from Statoil," LDT's Chief Executive Mantas Mikalajunas told Lithuanian business daily newspaper Verslo Zinios.