Lithuania’s Klaipedos Nafta, the state-owned operator of the country’s first LNG import facility, said that five companies would receive in total ten LNG cargoes via the 170,000-cbm FSRU Independence in the fourth quarter of this year.
Five companies from Lithuania, Estonia and Poland booked 9.66 TWh of the Klaipeda LNG terminal’s capacity following a capacity allocation procedure, KN said on Wednesday.
All the planned time windows for reception of cargoes are for large carriers carrying at least 138,000 cbm of LNG, according to KN.
Previously, KN’s customers have fully booked the LNG terminal’s regasification capacity for this gas year ending September 30, and FSRU Independence would receive 20 large LNG cargoes in the March-September period.
The new capacity allocation is for a relatively short period of time, or three months. This is to align the gas year with the calendar year following new use regulations of the Lithuanian LNG terminal, KN said.
These new regulations also allow more customers to book capacity at the facility as a single terminal user may not book more than half of the allocated terminal capacity, according to KN.
Huge capacity interest
“The total amount of requests for LNG degassing capacity received amounted to 36.9 TWh, i.e. four times the supply,” Jurgita Silinskaite-Vensloviene, head of KN LNG commerce, said.
“Therefore, according to the new rules, the capacity was allocated proportionally, giving priority to companies that have used the services of the LNG terminal in the last three years,” she said.
In June, KN plans to launch capacity allocation for 2023, as well as for a longer period of 5 or 10 years.
This option would allow LNG terminal customers to plan their LNG supply well in advance, thus systematically securing their needs, KN said.
Lithuania said in April it has completely abandoned imports of Russian gas and would satisfy the country’s entire gas demand via the FSRU-based LNG import facility in the port of Klaipeda.
Poland’s PGNiG also recently said that Russia’s Gazprom had cut supplies to Poland via the Yamal pipeline but the firm would continue to increase LNG imports via the Swinoujscie facility and other facilities.
Earlier this month, PGNiG imported its first cargo via the Klaipedos Nafta-operated FSRU-based facility.