In 2014, in the wake of anti-Russian sanctions, Lithuania decided to get rid of the monopoly of the Russian “Gazprom” and generally become energy-dependent. On this very patriotic wave, a liquefied natural gas terminal was built in Klaipeda. Lithuania plans to withdraw from the BRELL energy ring by 2025.
Starting the construction of the liquefied natural gas terminal, Lithuania hoped that it would receive liquefied gas from its long-time partners and friends – the United States and Norway. In fact, everything turned out somewhat differently – overseas gas turned out to be very expensive for Lithuania.
However, for some time the Lithuanian authorities carefully concealed this and said that the country is on the right path and is confidently moving towards its energy independence, and gas from the United States is generally what is needed. At the same time, Lithuanian politicians forgot to say that the Americans actually forced them to buy more expensive liquefied gas from them.
But first the crisis, then the warm winter made their own adjustments – the main gas fell in price and all European countries who did not refuse the gas needle of “Gazprom” filled all their storage facilities with cheap gas, but liquefied gas turned out to be unprofitable and its supplies almost completely stopped.
But with the onset of winter 2020, the picture changed – the world began to emerge from the crisis, the economy began to wake up and the need for gas increased dramatically. Forecasts for a cold winter also added fuel to the fire. Gas has risen in price.
China was the first to restore its economy and began to buy gas in huge quantities. All liquefied natural gas tankers are now going to southeast Asia. There are simply not enough of them for Europe.
Lithuania in this situation was once again rescued by… Russia. At the end of December, the gas carrier Coral Fungia left the port of Vysotsk and arrived in Klaipeda. The vessel delivered 9.5 thousand cubic meters of fuel.
The next gas carrier will arrive from Vysotsk next week.
But in this situation, many questions remain. So the Klaipeda liquefied natural gas terminal is not entirely Lithuanian, it belongs to Norway and Lithuania has to pay about €60 million annually for its use.
Naturally, Lithuania is just interested in the terminal being used constantly and paying for itself. But it will be difficult to do this, since liquefied gas is still much more expensive than conventional gas.
Lithuania’s “energy independence” also raises many questions. In my opinion, they were in a hurry there. The fact is that the indicator of Lithuania’s energy dependence today is approximately 74%. This result is much higher than the average value for the European Union, which in 2017 was 55.1%.
What will be interesting for Lithuania to cover the missing energy capacity? It refuses Russian gas and electricity, in addition to this, it does not want to receive electricity from the Belarusian Nuclear Power Plant! But Lithuania has nothing of its own!
Plus, there are plans for Lithuania’s exit from the BRELL energy ring (Belarus, Russia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania).
However, these are Lithuania’s problems, let it solve them itself. While Vilnius is talking about its energy independence from Russia, gas carriers from the Russian port of Vysotsk continue to go to Klaipeda.
Pervy Novostnoy (Zen Yandex)
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