Estonia’s two-month gas reserve reached Klaipeda

Eesti Gaas has bought the largest amount of LNG of the US origin so far, which covers the customers’ gas needs for the next two months. Today, the giant tanker Aristidis I arrived at the port of Klaipeda, where the LNG will be bunkered to Independence floating terminal in the coming days, and then the gas will flow to Estonia via Lithuanian and Latvian pipelines.

Aristidis I 

“We are reorganising our gas supply chains and looking for long-term LNG partners. This spring, we have not purchased Russian pipeline gas and have served customers from the reserves of an underground gas storage facility in Latvia. The LNG introduced in Aristidis I will provide security to Estonian gas customers for the next two months, and there are talks ongoing about the second half of the summer and further deliveries,” said Margus Kaasik, Chairman of the Management Board of Eesti Gaas.

“Eesti Gaas strives to ensure the future gas demand of its customers on the basis of LNG, however, it is clear that it is difficult to cover the rapidly growing gas consumption during the heating season only through the Klaipeda LNG terminal, as the entire Finnish-Baltic region relies on it today. Therefore, we consider the rapid construction of the Paldiski LNG terminal to be very important,” Kaasik emphasized.

Eesti Gaas purchased LNG from the United States in cooperation with the Polish state gas and energy company PGNiG. Completed last year, the 300-meter-long and 46-meter-wide Aristidis I brought a total of 65,000 tons or 150,000 m3 of liquefied gas from Texas to Klaipeda, a third of which arrives in Estonia.

“We are pleased that thanks to the cooperation with Eesti Gaas, PGNiG Group can be a part of the solution that strengthens the energy security of the Baltic states. We want to leverage our experience in the global LNG market to effectively work towards further diversification of the gas supply to this region,” said Iwona Waksmundzka-Olejniczak, President of PGNiG.

Eesti Gaas started using the small Klaipeda LNG terminal in Lithuania already in 2017, in 2019 an agreement was signed with Klaipedos Nafta, after which the purchase of LNG and its transmission to the natural gas network via the Klaipeda Independence floating terminal was started. In addition, the company has been supplying LNG with trucks from Russia, Latvia, Finland and Poland for bunkering ships and for off-grid industrial customers for many years.