Maritime Executive: Latvia Could Hold Back Baltic LNG Market

The Baltic states' ambitions to replace Russian pipeline gas with liquefied natural gas and create a tradable market are unlikely to come to fruition until 2017 or later because of restricted access to the region's sole gas storage site.

Lithuania is due to import the first commercial LNG cargo by tanker from Norway at the end of December. Its president has said that LNG could meet about 90 percent of Baltic gas needs in the future.

Until Lithuania can gain untrammeled access to storage and pipelines across the Baltics and establish a tradable regional market, however, its cost of securing a non-Russian source of supply is likely to be high. LNG importers need storage to balance flows as demand fluctuates.
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