Lithuania is making progress in building the Gas Interconnection Poland-Lithuania (GIPL), with 60 per cent of the construction work already complete. The achievement was strengthened by the 72-km section of the new gas pipeline that was filled with gas in the last days of this year. Natural gas was put into the section of the gas pipeline from the starting point of the GIPL gas interconnection in Širvintos district to Alytus, where the pipeline start-up adjustment works are being carried out.
According to Nemunas Biknius, CEO of Amber Grid, which is the company implementing the Gas Interconnection Poland-Lithuania project, proper project planning and cooperation with the contractor, ensuring project quality and time management, made it possible to complete 60 per cent of the GIPL construction work in just one year.
“The most important GIPL work planned for 2021 is to complete construction of the gas pipeline to the Lithuanian-Polish border, where we will install a gas pressure regulating and metering station. In parallel with the continuation of the infrastructure works, we are talking to market participants about the conditions for using the gas pipeline. The new gas pipeline will bring significant economic benefits to market participants in the Baltic States, Finland and Poland. We can sense a lot of interest, and we are planning on offering the GIPL pipeline capacity to the market by the beginning of 2022,” says Mr Biknius.
Since January 2020, when the GIPL project was launched, 125 km of pipeline have been welded. The gas pipeline has already been laid in the districts of Vilnius, Širvintos, Elektrėnai, Kaišiadorys, Prienai and Birštonas, and in part of Alytus district. Over the course of 2020, the most complex gas interconnection construction works in terms of technology and work organisation were carried out – crossing Lithuania’s largest rivers, installing the GIPL starting point next to the Jauniūnai gas compressor station, and connecting the completed section of the GIPL to the existing gas transmission system. All of the steel pipes required for the 165-km GIPL gas pipeline route have already been delivered to Lithuania, so any further restrictions due to the pandemic will not affect the project.
During construction of the gas pipeline, large-scale archaeological works were also organised in 2020, where almost all of Lithuania’s active archaeologists explored the gas pipeline route that runs through half of the country’s territory, searching for and capturing historical finds.
The GIPL will make it possible to transport up to 27 TWh of gas per year to the Baltic States, and up to 21 TWh per year to Poland. Following the implementation of this project, the Baltic gas markets will become part of the common EU natural gas market, and also part of the biomethane and hydrogen market in the future.
