Lithuanian official: Baltic regulators agree in principle on gas trade
Baltic regulators have reached a preliminary agreement on gas trade that calls for scrapping transmission tariffs for cross-border gas flows within the three countries, with a transitional period to begin next July and last through 2020.
"We have agreed on key issues," Inga Ziliene, chairwoman of Lithuania's National Commission for Energy Control and Prices, told BNS. "A few details remain to be finalized and then we will sign the document."
The Baltics will have a common natural gas transmission tariff system by 2020, the official said. "That is, we will eliminate tariffs at the borders so that natural gas suppliers can freely purchase gas regardless of the source of natural gas — whether it is gas from the terminal or gas from Gazprom," she explained. "There should be equal conditions and there should be no barriers."
According to Ziliene, it was agreed in principle that Finland would join the common trade area after 2020, with a gas pipeline between Finland and Estonia expected to be built by that time.
An entry-exit pricing model is currently applied to gas flows into and within the Baltic countries. This means that transmission system operators charge both for gas entering a Baltic country as well as for gas flowing from one Baltic country to another. The aim is to eliminate charges for cross-border flows within the region.
Editor: Aili Vahtla
Source: BNS