Russian gas could still be cheaper than the predicted LNG price for Lithuania

Lithuania’s natural gas supply and trading company Litgas provided a forecast for the 2015 LNG import prices revealing that it will be lower than the price paid in 2013.

The company asked the regulatory body to approve a fixed price for the LNG imported from Norway to 1,100 litas ($397) per 1,000 cubic meters.

Litgas predicts that the price of LNG at the Klaipeda terminal for the first nine months 2015 may range from 950 to 1,250 litas per thousand cubic meters.

Litgas’ General Director Dominykas Tučkus said the prediction is for nine months only as LNG prices for the 2015-2016 winter season are still too early to predict.

But according to Reuters, the price for the LNG bought from Statoil would still be at least 10% higher than the price of the gas imported from Russia, due to the fact that Gazprom cut its price by about 20% while Litgas was negotiating its deal with Statoil. This means that Lithuania has been paying an average price of 1,080 litas in the first six months of 2014.

Lithuania’s Energy Minister Rokas Masiulis did however say that access to LNG imports has strengthened the country’s bargaining position with Gazprom, putting a cap on the price for Russian gas.

Still, it could happen that the gap between LNG imports and Russian gas prices widens even further as the deal with Russia is indexed to the oil price which has fallen by more than 30% since June, raising the question whether Lithuania will use the remaining capacity at its new LNG import terminal.

1 LTL = 0.360666 USD

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LNG World News Staff; Image: Klaipedos Nafta