Energy, Estonia, EU – Baltic States, Gas, Legislation

Last Friday, Parts said that a positive compromise was reached at talks with Finnish officials that there will be two terminals, one in Inkoo and one in Paldiski and they will be developed by Gasum in Finland and Alexela concern in Estonia. The terminals will be linked with the BalticConnector gas pipeline. Parts explained that the company will operate as one regional terminal but physical locations will be on both sides of the Gulf of Finland.

"The understanding spread in the media of the Baltic States that two terminals would be built is misleading," Finnish Gasum's marketing manager Olga Väisänen declared this Wednesday. "The agreement that one terminal will be built in Finland and one in Estonia is one option. There is no decision and all possibilities are open."

Finns don’t interpret the agreement that was concluded on Friday in Tallinn so that now negotiations would be launched for founding a joint venture, they think that now studies will be launched for building LNG terminals with Alexela and for building the Baltic Connector gas pipeline with EG Võrguteenused.

While Alexela completed already in February the project of the Paldiski terminal accommodating 160,000 m3 of gas, all of their studies have been conducted and construction could be launched this autumn, the talk in the Northern shore of the gulf is rather vague. "There is no agreement on how many terminals or where they would be built," Väisänen declared.

Gasum's statements are the more surprising that they "woke up" last year only a moment before Alexela's terminal project seemed already a winner in the fight for the hundreds of millions of euros of EU support. Suddenly Gasum emerged and declared that its terminal planned to be built in Inkoo is much better. Now the company explains in its homepage that it cannot decide whether to build the terminal in Inkoo or perhaps in Porvoo instead.

One of the causes of stalling tactics of Gasum can be the fact that the gas pipeline agreement concluded in Tallinn forces Gazprom to leave the circle of shareholders of Gasum, since European rules don’t allow a gas seller to own the grid. Gasum's leaders and even shareholders just don’t know now what the structure of the company will be like and who will own the company in the future.