Ukraine war: Lithuania completely abandons Russian gas in EU first
- ‘From this month on, no more Russian gas in Lithuania,’ President Gitanas Nauseda said in a tweet as he urged other European nations to do the same
- Lithuania managed to cut its energy dependence on Moscow after it launched the Klaipeda offshore LNG import terminal in 2014
Lithuania managed to reduce imports of Russian gas to zero on Saturday, a move seen a milestone in achieving energy independence in the former Soviet republic of 2.8 million, the ministry said.
“We are the first EU country among Gazprom’s supply countries to gain independence from Russian gas supplies, and this is the result of a multi-year coherent energy policy and timely infrastructure decisions,” Minister of Energy Dainius Kreivys said.
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Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda posted an upbeat tweet on his account and urged other European nations to do the same.
“From this month on – no more Russian gas in Lithuania. Years ago, my country made decisions that today allow us with no pain to break energy ties with the aggressor. If we can do it, the rest of Europe can do it too!” Nauseda tweeted.
In 2015, nearly 100 per cent of Lithuania’s gas supplies derived from imports of Russian gas but the situation has changed drastically over the past years after the country built an offshore LNG import terminal, launched in 2014, in the port city of Klaipeda.
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The energy ministry said from now on all gas for Lithuania’s domestic consumption would be imported via Klaipeda’s LNG terminal.
Last year, some 26 per cent of Lithuania’s gas supplies derived from deliveries from a Russian gas pipeline while 62 per cent came via Klaipeda’s LNG terminal and the remaining 12 per cent were imported from a gas storage in neighbouring Latvia.
Baltic neighbours Latvia and Estonia are also heavily dependent on Russian gas but the operator of Latvia’s natural gas storage said none of the three Baltic states were importing Russian gas as of April 2.
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Uldis Bariss, the CEO of Conexus Baltic Grid, told Latvian media on Saturday that the Baltic gas market was currently being served by gas reserves stored underground in Latvia.
Last month, Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte said Klaipeda’s LNG terminal wouldn’t have enough capacity to provide gas for all the three Baltic countries.
As a solution, Estonia’s government has proposed building a LNG terminal jointly with Latvia and Nordic neighbour Finland in the Estonian port town of Paldiski, which is not far from the capital, Tallinn.
