Lithuania boosting efforts to become regional LNG hub

Lithuania is pushing forward with its efforts in becoming a regional liquefied natural gas (LNG) distribution hub.

The Baltic country started importing chilled gas in December 2014 in order to reduce its dependence on Russian gas supplies.

LNG is being imported via the FSRU Independence, serving as Lithuania’s import terminal in the port of Klaipeda. The port is also home to a reloading station that is currently being built and will enable LNG bunkering in the Baltic Sea region.

In the latest move, the Lithuanian LNG cluster, established a year ago, announced new projects that would boost the development of LNG distribution infrastructure in the region.

The partners in the LNG cluster are developing an LNG-powered rail locomotive and are planning to start the production of an LNG tank named the Liquid Intelligent Tank (LIT).

The LNG-powered locomotive will be used for the logistics of freight wagons and is aimed to become a flagship for LNG applications in the rail transport sector. Based on the assumption that LNG-fueled trucks operating on fixed routes in Poland use 40 percent less fuel, the cluster expects the new locomotive’s fuel consumption to be lower, consequently reducing the overall costs.

The production of the smart LNG shipping containers has been spurred by the development of Klaipedos Nafta’s LNG distribution center in the port of Klaipeda. The cluster is aiming to develop better conditions for LNG distribution with the new container design.

The project is being developed by the Lithuanian Western Shipyard in cooperation with Emerson and DNV-GL and the first LNG shipping containers in Lithuania are expected to be available for use at the end of this year.