Direct Speech, Energy, EU – Baltic States, Gas, Legislation, Lithuania

“This in fact is the patching up of holes, an attempt to alleviate that unreasonable, unjustified, unreal burden, which was imposed on our consumers while ignoring the fact that gas consumption is decreasing with the arrival of biofuel. The decision [the revised deal] is excellent, good, but here we need strategic decisions,” deputy director of the Lithuanian Confederation of Industrialists said.

The main achievement was the reduced volume of gas, which meant that Lithuania would not have to look for buyers of surplus gas and would not have to cover the difference in prices with consumers’ money, he said.

“The first and foremost achievement is a substantial decrease in that difference, which we’ll have to cover, a decrease in that additional security burden, for that gas, which will be in surplus,” he told the LRT radio.

In Jankauskas’ view, one of the ways to increase gas consumption could be to build a new advanced power plant.

Statoil's liquefied natural gas (LNG) price for Lithuania is set to fall by more than one-third and the Klaipeda LNG terminal's maintenance costs are to decline by around 23 percent after Lithuania's gas trade company Litgas completed talks with the Norwegian supplier on a revision of their long-term gas purchase contract.

According to Dalius Misiunas, CEO of the state energy group Lietuvos Energija (Lithuanian Energy), the price of gas will go down to around 16-20 euros per megawatt-hour (MWh) under the new deal with Statoil, from around 27-30 euros currently, and the annual costs of LNG facility’s maintenance will decrease by approximately 25.5 million euros.

Under the revised deal, four tankers will deliver a total of 350 million cubic meters of LNG to Klaipeda annually. The previous contract provided for 540 million cubic meters of LNG to be delivered by six ships.

Litgas and Statoil in August 2014 signed a five-year contract on the supply of 2.7 billion cubic meters of LNG. Amid a decline in gas consumption in Lithuania, the gas trade arm of Lietuvos Energija initiated talks on a ten-year contract for the purchase of 3.7 billion cubic meters of gas in total. Also, the price structure and coefficients have been changed as a result of the talks.