Poland’s dominant gas firm and LNG player, PGNiG, said it has imported its first cargo of liquefied natural gas via the Klaipedos Nafta-operated FSRU-based facility in the port of Klaipeda.
“The delivery of almost 65,000 tonnes of LNG from the US is a step towards further integration of gas markets in this part of Europe and strengthening of their energy security,” PGNiG said in a statement on Friday.
PGNiG 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.
On the other side, Lithuania has completely abandoned imports of Russian gas and will now satisfy the country’s entire gas demand via the 170,000-cbm FSRU Independence.
PGNiG and KN are already partners in the latter’s small-scale facility in the port of Klaipeda. The Polish firm is the sole user of the facility and has loaded a record number of trucks last year for onward distribution to Poland, Lithuania, as well as Latvia and Estonia.
Now, the firms have expanded their cooperation with the first LNG cargo via the Klaipeda FSRU.
This move also follows the launch of Polish-Lithuanian gas pipeline interconnector GIPL on May 1.
According to PGNiG, the 174,000-cbm LNG carrier Aristidis I, owned by Capital Product Partners, brought the cargo from the Freeport LNG export plant in the US.
PGNiG and Estonia’s Elenger jointly bought the shipment
PGNiG has joined forces with Estonia’s Elenger, a unit of Infortar’s Eesti Gas, to buy the LNG cargo.
Worth mentioning here, Estonia’s Infortar recently joined forces with compatriot energy company Alexela to develop the FSRU-based LNG import terminal in Paldiski, as the country looks to phase out Russian gas supplies.
Gas from the first cargo received by PGNiG in Klaipeda would be supplied not only to the Polish market, but also to the Baltic state, the Poliish firm said in the statement.
Elenger, one of the major energy companies in the Finnish-Baltic region, has bought part of the LNG delivery for their customers, it said.