Eesti Gas, a part of Estonian investment firm Infortar, has imported another cargo of liquefied natural gas via the KN-operated FSRU-based facility in Lithuania’s port of Klaipeda.
“This is already the fourth major LNG-based gas delivery with which Eesti Gaas ensures the gas supply of its customers in the upcoming autumn months,” Eesti Gaas, branded internationally as Elenger, said in a statement last week.
According to the statement, the 174,130-cbm LNG carrier, Isabella, owned by Maran Gas and chartered by Equinor, delivered the cargo to Klaipeda from the US.
Its AIS data provided by VesselsValue shows that the vessel previously loaded the cargo at Cheniere’s Sabine Pass plant in Louisiana.
Eesti Gas said that it has received the previous three cargoes via the 174,000-cbm Independence FSRU in a cooperation with Poland’s dominant gas firm and LNG player, PGNiG.
Half of the newest LNG cargo would cover the needs of Estonian customers, while the other half would remain in Lithuania and Poland, the firm said.
“The supply is divided in this way for the reason that the Lithuanian-Latvian border point does not allow the entire amount of gas to be brought over to Estonia, international connections have their own restrictions,” Margus Kaasik, chairman of the management board of Eesti Gaas said in the statement.
“However, our customers can be calm, because we will bring one more LNG cargo in November, and no one will be without gas,” Kaasik said.
Estonian imports
In July, Eesti Gas revealed a deal with Equinor for LNG supplies for the upcoming winter season.
The firm bought 2 TWh of LNG, or about two cargoes, for delivery in October and November at Lithuania’s FSRU-based facility.
Eesti Gaas entered the LNG business five years and was the only gas seller from Estonia, Finland or Latvia to successfully participate and book two slots out of ten at the Klaipeda facility for the fourth quarter this year.
“There is plenty of LNG in the world, the bottleneck is too few terminals where it can be unloaded,” Kaasik said.
“In addition, we see that countries have begun to intervene in the free market and increasingly protect the interests of their own companies. Estonia must not leave its companies in an unequal situation, neither in the short nor long term,” he said.
“Gas sellers, industries, the entire market are currently monitoring efforts to achieve priority access for Estonian companies to Finland’s Inkoo terminal, the gas supply security and competitiveness of our economy depend on it,” Kaasik said.
Estonia currently has no LNG import terminals. Alexela and Infortar are working on the FSRU-based Paldiski LNG facility along with Elering, but Finland and Estonia recently agreed to place Excelerate Energy’s FSRU in Inkoo, Finland.
Excelerate’s 150,900-cbm FSRU Exemplar will serve Finland, Estonia, and other Baltic states under a 10-year charter deal Gasgrid signed with the US LNG firm in May.