Brussels, 28/10/2014 (Agence Europe) - Lithuania officially opened its liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal in the Baltic Sea port of Klaipeda on Monday 27 October.
The principal section of the Klaipeda LNG terminal is a 300-metre long floating storage vessel complete with regasification unit. The vessel, Independence, has been leased for a period of ten years from the Norwegian company Hoegh LNG. From 2015, the methane terminal will allow Lithuania to buy 540 million cubic metres of gas from the Norwegian Statoil and thereafter, once its contract with Gasprom ends in late 2015, up to 4 billion cubic metres of gas per year, well above the 2.7 billion cubic metres bought from Russia in 2013. It will also allow the country to buy LNG from other suppliers on the world market.
The terminal “will be a security guarantee for the whole region” as it will be able to cover 90% of the gas supply needs of the three Baltic States, said Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite at the opening ceremony. “From now on, nobody will dictate the price of gas to us - or buy our political will”, she stated. “The challenges that Europe faces today in terms of security of gas supply require a quick response and Lithuania has shown how this can be delivered”, said outgoing Energy Commissioner Günther Oettinger in a written statement. US Secretary of State John Kerry, also in a written statement, commended Lithuania's “strategic vision”.
The €145 million LNG installation was built without EU support. “The importance of this terminal is recognised at the EU level. In the Commission's European energy security strategy presented last May, the Klaipeda LNG terminal is included as number one in the list of infrastructure projects that contribute to ensuring the security of EU supplies”, states a press release from the Presidency of the Lithuanian Republic. (EH)