The recent developments in the Lithuanian gas market

Abstract

The Lithuanian Government claiming that the country due to significant gas share in the national energy balance and implementation of the stringent version of the Third Energy Package is less secure than two other Baltic States and having in mind presumably limited interests of the neighbours for construction of the regional LNG terminal has decided to build its own. The LNG import terminal was built at the port of Klaipeda during a short time period, it became functional in December 2014. The terminal’s full regasification capacity of 4 billion cubic meters (bcm) could be a key game changer in the completely monopolistic gas market of three Baltic States, which in total consume 5.5 bcm of natural gas per year. Although the primary goal of the Lithuanian LNG terminal is to satisfy the national needs, the terminal will operate under the so-called ‘ third party access ’ regime, which means that the Baltic neighbours and partners will also have the possibility to use terminal’s capacity for their own needs on the regulated and non-discriminatory basis.