Lithuania ready to buy LNG in United States - Energy Ministry
Lithuania is ready to buy liquefied natural gas (LNG) in the United States as soon as American companies begin to export it, Lithuanian Energy Minister Rokas Masiulis said.
The Lithuanian Energy Ministry said in a press release that on Tuesday in Washington a meeting took place between Energy Minister Masiulis and U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz.
The Lithuanian Energy Ministry is suggesting that LNG exporters supply gas through the Klaipeda terminal not only to Lithuania, but also to Latvia and Estonia, and from 2019 to consumers in Poland and Ukraine, Masiulis said at the meeting.
According to the ministry's information, Lithuania is considered by the United States not as a separate market of a small state, but as a part of a large regional market.
Already for several years Lithuania has tried to provide LNG imports from the United States. This is already one of the priorities named by President Dalia Grybauskaite and Prime Minister Algirdas Butkevicius.
The LNG terminal, at the port of Klaipeda, was officially commissioned on December 3, 2014. The terminal will have capacity for 1 bcm a year in the first few years, later rising to about 4 bcm. Previously, Lithuania relied on Gazprom to supply all the gas it consumed.