Lithuania Secures LNG Volume, Price Cuts

Lietuvos Energija's trading arm will sign January 25 a new liquefied natural gas purchase contract with Norway’s Statoil for cheaper and smaller deliveries to Lithuania's import terminal at Klaipeda. Litgas, the gas trader, and Statoil have agreed on a lower gas price, reflecting lower gas prices generally in northeast Europe. The contract will be extended for another 5 years.

“The price of Statoil's gas will be insignificantly lower under the new deal, as well as the volume of the Norwegian gas imports,” an official knowledgeable of the situation in the Lithuanian energy ministry told NGE.

The 2014 Litgas-Statoil agreement obliged Lithuania to buy 540mn m³/year of Norwegian gas, or 2.7bn m³ over five years. The Baltic state, however, has long sought to revise contract, as the country’s Klaipeda LNG terminal has running at around 20%-25% of capacity which is almost 4bn m³/yr.

Last summer, Lithuania was in talks with Statoil over the price and supply volumes, but negotiators came empty-handed. Lithuania’s fertilizer manufacturer Achema, the Baltics’ largest industrial gas consumer, and Statoil have been in talks over a gas supply deal, which is expected to be signed at the end of the month.