Lithuania’s gas demand has decreased significantly, according to transmission system operator Amber Grid. At the same time, gas flows through the country’s transmission system have increased.
In the first nine months of this year, almost 30 terawatt-hours (TWh) of gas were delivered to Lithuania, excluding transit to Kaliningrad Oblast. This is 45 per cent more than at the same time last year when 20.5 TWh of gas was transported to Lithuania. For the needs of the other Baltic States and Finland, as well as for storage at the Inčukalns underground gas storage facility, 13.2 TWh of gas was transported via a gas pipeline to Latvia. This is almost eight times more than in the same period in 2021.
As a result of the energy price crisis in Europe, gas consumption in Lithuania fell by more than a third in nine months. From January to the end of September, the country consumed almost 12 TWh of gas, which is 36 per cent less than at the same time last year, when gas demand was 18.5 TWh. The drop in gas consumption is mainly due to a significant reduction in gas consumption this year by Achema, a fertiliser producer and the largest gas consumer in Lithuania.
“The international crisis in the energy sector is manifested in the fact that gas consumption in Lithuania is rapidly declining, but gas is flowing through our pipelines at never-before-seen volumes,” commented Nemunas Biknius, CEO at Amber Grid. “Currently, around 80 per cent of the gas entering Lithuania is being transferred to other countries in the European Union. In the context of recent events, we have definitively become a crossroads for gas flows and we are helping other countries to secure their gas supplies.”
Since May this year, 4.2 TWh of gas was transported to Poland from May to September via the GIPL pipeline and 1 TWh was transported via the GIPL interconnection to Lithuania.
The Klaipėda LNG terminal, the main source of gas supply to Lithuania and the Baltic States, accounted for 77 per cent (22.7 TWh) of the total gas transported into the system in the first nine months. Flows from Latvia accounted for almost 10 per cent (2.8 TWh) and flows from Poland comprised 3%. From January to March, about 10 per cent (3 TWh) of gas was transported through the Lithuania-Belarus interconnection.
