Eesti Gas, a unit of Estonian investment firm Infortar, said it will deliver three more LNG cargoes to Finland’s Inkoo FSRU-based terminal during the winter.
These LNG supplies will help cover gas needs in Finland during the winter season while the Balticconnector offshore gas pipeline between Finland and Estonia is shut shown due to a leak.
As a result of the winter capacity booking organized by Gasgrid’s LNG terminal unit, Eesti Gaas secured three delivery slots out of six, the firm said in a statement.
Finnish state-owned energy firm Gasum booked the three other winter slots for delivery to Excelerate Energy’s 150,900-cbm FSRU Exemplar, which serves Gasgrid’s import facility in Inkoo under a charter deal.
Together with the one previously booked slot, the new bookings will allow Eesti Gaas to bring a total of four LNG cargoes to Finland from December to April, it said.
18 LNG shipments in 2023
Eesti Gas, which is branded internationally as Elenger, is the biggest customer of Finland’s LNG facility in the port of Inkoo.
With the planned delivery in December and the one recently announced for November, Eesti Gaas will deliver in total 13 shipments to the FSRU-based terminal in Inkoo this year.
Including five shipments delivered to the Klaipeda FSRU in Lithuania, the company’s 2023 LNG deliveries will reach 18 shipments, 13 more compared to just five cargoes in 2022.
“Previously, natural gas reached Estonia mainly via a pipeline from Russia but for almost a year and a half this direction has been closed and a full-scale turn to the west has taken place,” Eesti Gaas said.
Eesti Gaas said the LNG supplies come mostly from the US and Norway.
One LNG cargo every month
Margus Kaasik, chairman of the management board of Eesti Gaas, said the company’s goal is to bring one LNG cargo every month to Finland during the winter period and thereby ensure stability and security for customers and the Finnish gas market.
“The interruption of the Balticconnector has brought new challenges, but the market is capable of solving this situation with the cooperation of the system operator, the LNG terminal and the gas importers,” he said.
Kaasik added that the impact of the Balticconnector incident to the Baltic countries is “significantly smaller compared to Finland – we can serve Baltic customers through the Klaipeda terminal in Lithuania and the underground gas storage in Incukalns in Latvia, where we have stored enough gas for the winter.”