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Olga van Kampen, spokesperson for Vopak, said the company is ready to start the construction of Phase One of the terminal, or the part meant for bunkering of vessels and filling of trucks, in 2017. Building a regional terminal would be the second phase of the Muuga project and, in line with the estimates offered by the company earlier, the two stages are to cost respectively 20 mln and 250 mln euros.

"We are drafting an application for financing to Connecting Europe Facility," told the spokesperson.

She added that Vopak, which is not a trader in LNG but a provider of storage and pumping services and a global owner of terminals, has held negotiations with all major gas sellers to find out about their interest in terminal service.

"Having analyzed potential locations for terminals in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, the eastern part of the Muuga harbor is, in the view of Vopak E.O.S., undoubtedly the best option. That was confirmed also by the analysis of the BEMIP (Baltic Energy Market Interconnection Plan in gas) work group in September 2015, which ranked the Tallinn LNG terminal project as second best after the Finnish Finngulf project, which no longer exists," van Kampen said.

"It's obvious that an onshore terminal like the one planned for Muuga is always a considerably cheaper option than a floating terminal, such as the one operating now in Klaipeda. Both the investments in an onshore terminal and its operating costs make up a fraction of those of a floating terminal of similar size," she added.

Lithuania's negotiations with the European Commission on the purchase of the vessel of the Klaipeda LNG termial depend on whether Latvia and Estonia recognize the Lithuanian LNG terminal as a regional facility, Lithuania's Energy Minister Zygimantas Vaiciunas said on Tuesday.

"Naturally, we could expect European support if it were a regional terminal not only de facto, but also de jure.  A lot depends on how Latvia and Estonia see the prospects of this terminal, because we are speaking about a conceptually new project as what we have until 2024 is lease, and financial support for lease is not possible," told Vaiciunas. According to the Lithuanian minister, a deal on financial support for the acquisition of the vessel is also linked to the creation of a common gas market of the Baltic countries.

The project to build a LNG terminal in Tallinn is on the list of projects of common interest (PCI) of the BEMIP Gas action plan for interconnection of the Baltic gas markets. The Muuga project has been filed as an alternative to a similar project being pursued by Alexela. The European Commission says in document on PCI that it is a priority to develop one of these terminals – either the Alexela terminal at Paldiski or Vopak's in Muuga.

The Alexela group company Balti Gaas filed an application for funding for the Paldiski LNG terminal with Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) in October last year, seeking 344 mln euros. Vopak did not file a financing application then.

Vopak says the advantages of the Muuga project are existing infrastructure of the Muuga harbor and the existing high-level logistics center for liquid goods, which allows to develop a LNG terminal without having to significantly expand existing port infrastructure.

The terminal would be situated two kilometers from existing gas interconnections, with the national gas transmission network situated at a distance of 12 kilometers.

The supervisory board of the state owned company Port of Tallinn endorsed the plan to build a LNG terminal at Muuga last summer, with Vopak as the party responsible for the investment.