Price drop on Lithuanian natural gas exchange boosts imports to Estonia
The price of natural gas on Lithuanian exchange GET Baltic tumbled 23 percent to 12.83 euros per megawatt-hour in June, which lifted the share of imports from Lithuania from 9.5 to 18.6 percent of Estonia's total gas imports.
Estonia imported a total of 18.2 million cubic meters of gas in June, nearly 8 percent less than in the same month of the previous year, and Lithuanian imports made up 3.4 million cubic meters of that total, transmission system operator Elering said.
The rest of the imported gas was purchased from Russian natural gas firm Gazprom. Baltic Energy Partners and Eesti Energia imported gas in June.
During the month of June, 212.2 million cubic metersof gas moved from Russia to Latvia via a natural gas pipeline in Southeastern Estonia; compared to the same month a year prior, the total volume of transported gas fell almost 54 percent. The Inčukalns Underground Gas Storage Facility in Latvia, the only functioning gas-storage facility in the Baltics, began to be filled on June 8, and by the end of the month it had been filled to 18.6 percent of its total capacity, or 429.2 million cubic meters of natural gas.
During the first half of the year, gas imports into Estonia increased by 8 percent compared to the same period last year, totaling 302.7 million cubic meters.
Editor: Editor: Aili Sarapik
Source: BNS