Baltic States – CIS, Energy, Estonia, Gas, Lithuania

Last week, the energy trader Baltic Energy Partners (BEP) bought the first test amount of gas from the Lithuanian gas system and sold 100,000 m3 of it to Estonian large-scale consumers. This is a historic transaction, because Estonia had never previously bought gas from Lithuania and the Baltic states have so far had to rely solely Russia's Gazprom.

"As a business, we will did not, of course, make a loss-making transaction. But the truth is that it is reasonable to buy LNG from Lithuania when it is cheaper than that of Gazprom," said BEP partner Marko Allikson and drew attention that the LNG option sets a price cap to gas and that is only positive.

Now it was proved that it is possible to deliver to Estonia liquefied natural gas from the Klaipeda LNG terminal that was opened in December, i.e. gas that is not dependent on Russia.

Since it was a small amount, i.e. 13,000 m3 per day, and one cannot fight the rules of physics, it is likely, however, that the so-called Lithuanian gas molecules did not really cross the Estonian border and that gas was consumed already in Latvia. Just the necessary amount of Russian gas stored in Latvia was sent to Estonia.

The important thing is the seller of gas, just like it is about electricity. Opening the Klaipeda terminal turned Eesti Gaas, that was so far a monopoly, into just a market player, although Estonia's largest. Other market makers of the gas market are BEP and state-owned Eesti Energia, for example.

Eesti Gaas Managing Director Raul Kotov said that the Klaipėda terminal gives consumers greater confidence, and also takes the opportunity away from competitors of gas fuel to scare consumers with the disruption of supplies. But that is about it, largely, he thinks.