In the first quarter of 2023, Lithuania consumed 3.2 terawatt hours (TWh) of gas, or 44% less than in the winter of 2022, when the country's gas demand was 5.7 TWh, according to the data of Amber Grid, the operator of the gas transmission system in Lithuania. The drop in gas demand was mainly due to warm winter weather, high gas prices, which led to a significant reduction in the use of gas for fertiliser production and the choice of fuel oil for heating the capital.
Despite lower domestic consumption, the volume of gas transported to Lithuania increased. In the first three months of this year, 9.9 terawatt hours (TWh) of gas were delivered to Lithuania, excluding transit to Kaliningrad. This is an increase of 18.5% compared to 8.4 TWh at the same time last year. Most of these imports (around 70%) were transited to other EU countries.
The GIPL pipeline linking Lithuania and Poland transported 1.5 TWh of gas to Europe in January-March 2023 and 0.4 TWh to Lithuania. Last November, the expansion of the pipeline link with Latvia resulted in 5 TWh of gas being transported to meet the needs of the Baltic States and Finland, as well as for storage at the Inčukalnis underground gas storage facility. This is a 95% increase compared to the same period in 2022.
"Twice as much gas was transported in the Latvian direction this quarter than last year and one and a half times as much as was consumed in Lithuania in the same period. This shows that Lithuania's gas infrastructure is critical for gas supply to other countries in the region. This was undoubtedly helped by our earlier-than-expected completion of the strategic ELLI project, which increased the capacity of the interconnection with Latvia by one third. In addition, gas from Lithuania was supplied to Finnish consumers via Latvia. It is expected that with the Finnish LNG terminal becoming more operational, gas flows from Lithuania to Finland and the other Baltic countries will be somewhat reduced in the future, as the Finns will be able to source their gas through their own terminal," said Nemunas Biknius, CEO of Amber Grid.
The Klaipėda LNG terminal, the main source of gas supply to Lithuania and the other Baltic countries, accounted for 90.1% (8.9 TWh) of the total gas transported into the system in the first quarter of 2023. Flows from Latvia accounted for 6.2% (0.6 TWh) and from Poland for 3.7% (0.4 TWh).
