24 April 2024
Baltic bout: Klaipeda LNG terminal squares up to regional competitors
Publication date: 30 September 2020
Gas Strategies Group
10 Saint Bride Street
London UK
EC4A 4AD
ISSN: 0964-8496
Twitter @GasStrategies
Editorials
Subscriptions
In February, US secretary of state Mike Pompeo pledged Washington will invest “up to USD 1 billion” to “galvanize” investment in energy infrastructure in “central and eastern European countries of the Three Seas Initiative”, in line with the Trump administration’s aim of bolstering exports of US LNG into Europe and reducing the region’s reliance on Russian gas.
The Three Seas Initiative members – 11 eastern European countries plus Austria – drew up a list of ‘priority interconnection projects’ in 2018. It included the planned 1.8 mtpa Paldiski LNG terminal in Estonia and Lithuania’s proposed purchase of the Independence floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU), which serves the 2.9 mtpa Klaipeda terminal.
Not on the list was another proposed regas project in the Baltics, the 3 mtpa Skulte terminal in Latvia. But with Klaipeda already serving the region well enough, and not taking into account Washington’s desire to open up new outlets for US LNG through midstream investment, is there really a need for more regas capacity in the Baltics?