However, Algirdas Butkevičius warns that Lithuania will have no possibilities to store gas in Latvia unless an additional gas pipeline is built.
“We have to increase the capacity of the gas pipeline between Klaipėda and Kuršėnai so as to be able to supply gas from the LNG terminal to the underground gas storage facility in Incukalns. I think that this option would be the best for us and I hope that we will manage to get funding from the European Union’s (EU) budget, in particular, as I said, for the building of additional pipelines,” he said in an interview to the Lithuanian Radio on Tuesday.
“If we don’t build that pipeline, we will actually have no technical possibilities to supply gas to Incukalns,” Butkevičius added.
Reminded about earlier discussions to build an underground gas storage facility in Lithuania, he said that the storage facility in Incukalns was convenient since its infrastructure had already been developed.
Klaipėdos Nafta (Klaipėda Oil), the developer of the LNG facility project, has recently announced plans to store up to 100 million cubic meters of gas in Incukalns in 2015 and up to 200 million cubic meters starting from 2017. It also said that a gas storage contract with Latvijas Gaze, Latvia’s natural gas utility, should be signed after the completion of gas storage services tender procedures.
About a billion cubic meters of gas is expected to be pumped via the LNG facility in the first year of operation. It is planned that the LNG terminal in Klaipėda will have an annual capacity of 2 billion to 3 billion cubic meters.
Lithuania expects to build the terminal in Klaipėda by the end of 2014 to obtain a cheaper alternative to Gazprom-supplied Russian gas.
