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Koch Supply & Trading, a gas trading arm of US Koch Industries, is thought to have offered cheaper gas to Lithuania than Norway's Statoil and Russia's Gazprom.

Lietuvos Duju Tiekimas (Lithuanian Gas Supply, or LDT), a gas trading subsidiary of the state-owned energy group Lietuvos Energija (Lithuanian Energy), has signed a deal to purchase 2 mln megawatt-hours, or around 190 mln cubic meters of gas, from Koch Supply & Trading next year.

This will cover approximately one-third of the Lithuanian company's 2017 needs of some 600 mln cubic meters.

"I believe this is a signal that competition is growing. We have shown to the market that we are fulfilling our contracts and we have become known, and this visibility is producing a return for us," Lietuvos Energija CEO Dalius Misiunas told.

Vidmantas Jankauskas, an energy expert, says that with a contract to Statoil in place and an almost 100% certainty that Gazprom will supply some gas to Lithuania, it is possible "to play in the market".

"One can play in this shrunken market of ours, which is what this deal shows. We can even play only in the spot market and see if we get our fingers burnt," he said.

LDT announced the signing of the deal with Koch Supply & Trading on Wednesday, but provided no further details.

LDT spokesman Paulius Jakutavicius told that the company could not comment on what gas price formula would be used and to what index it would be tied.

Misiunas said that the price offered by Koch Supply & Trading was good, but he did not elaborate.

Jakutavicius would not disclose how gas would be delivered to Klaipeda: whether Koch Supply & Trading would transport it by separate LNG carriers or would cooperate with another supplier, such as Statoil.