Energy, Gas, Latvia, Legislation, Security

Representatives of the Economics Ministry explained that the current regulations only oblige the gas transmission and storage operator to keep at the facility a natural gas reserve for existing consumers, which means that there is a risk of running out of gas reserves in case of an emergency during a heating season.

The amended regulations oblige the gas transmission and storage operator to keep at least 300 million cubic meters of active natural gas at the storage facility from the end of each gas injection season to March 1 of the respective year in order to ensure gas supplies for Latvia.

The Economics Ministry said the new requirements on the amount of gas that has to be kept at the storage facility for a particular period of time will help reduce supply-related risks and prevent the situation where the storage facility starts running out of natural gas towards the end of the heating season (March).

The storage of the necessary minimum amount of natural gas at Incukalns is expected to cost an estimated EUR 6 million a year, or EUR 0.42 per megawatt hour. The effect on the end-tariffs on natural gas for households using gas for heating, for instance, would be around 1.2 percent.