EMEA News
Statoil and Lietuvos Energija to Develop LNG Supply Business for Baltic Sea
Norway's Statoil ASA (Statoil) and Lithuania's state-owned Lietuvos Energija are planning to work together to develop a small-scale liquefied natural gas (LNG) supply operation, putting themselves in competition with Finland's Gasum Oy (Gasum), Reuters reports.
Lithuania's LNG terminal at Klaipėda will be used as a hub to distribute LNG by smaller tankers around the Baltic Sea for ships and inland use where pipelines don't reach.
On Thursday, Litgas, an LNG arm of Lietuvos Energija, signed a preliminary agreement with Statoil to establish a joint venture by the end of 2015, with plans to start operations in the last quarter of 2017 at the latest, Litgas said in a statement.
"This is a market in its infancy, but is expected to grow quite considerably in years to come," said Geir Heitmann, vice president for LNG trading for Statoil.
Gasum also reportedly plans to develop an LNG bunkering business in the Baltic Sea by opening several small LNG terminals on Finland's coast.
Gasum, which has acquired 51 percent of Norwegian LNG distributor Skangass AS, says that it is now the largest operator in the Nordic LNG market.
Litgas has said that the Baltic Sea small-scale LNG market is forecast to reach 0.5-1 billion cubic metres of gas by 2020 because of stricter environmental regulations for ship fuel.
Last year, Litgas announced that Statoil would supply 540 million cubic meters of natural gas per year to the Klaipėda LNG terminal.
