A major LNG delivery from United States arrived in Klaipeda

Elenger has bought the largest yet amount of LNG of the US origin, to cover its customers’ gas needs for the upcoming months. Today, the giant tanker Aristidis I arrived at the port of Klaipeda, where the cargo will be bunkered to Independence floating LNG terminal in the coming days, and thereafter the gas will flow to Inčukalns storage and customer consumption via Lithuanian and Latvian pipelines.

Aristidis I 

“We are reorganising our gas supply chains and looking for long-term LNG partners. This spring, we have not purchased Russian pipeline gas and have served our customers from the reserves of an underground gas storage facility in Latvia. The LNG introduced in Aristidis I will provide security to gas customers for the next month or two, and there are talks ongoing about the second half of the summer and further deliveries,” said Margus Kaasik, head of Elenger group.

“Elenger strives to ensure the future gas demand of its customers on the basis of LNG. However, in order to be able to meet the increased gas consumption during the heating season, it is vital that the Paldiski LNG terminal construction will be realized in Estonia, since the capacity of the current Klaipeda LNG terminal will not cover the gas demand of the whole Finnish-Baltic region,” Kaasik emphasized.

Elenger obtained LNG from the United States in cooperation with the Polish state gas and energy company PGNiG. Completed last year, the 300-meter-long and 46-meter-wide Aristidis I brought a total of 65,000 tons or 150,000 m3 of liquefied gas from Texas to Klaipeda, a third of which was bought by Elenger.

“We are pleased that thanks to the cooperation with Eesti Gaas, PGNiG Group can be a part of the solution that strengthens the energy security of the Baltic states. We want to leverage our experience in the global LNG market to effectively work towards further diversification of the gas supply to this region,” said Iwona Waksmundzka-Olejniczak, President of PGNiG.

Elenger started using the small Klaipeda LNG terminal in Lithuania already in 2017. In 2019 an agreement was signed with Klaipedos Nafta, after which the purchase of LNG and its transmission to the natural gas network via the Klaipeda Independence floating terminal was started. In addition, Elenger has been supplying LNG with trucks from Russia, Latvia, Finland and Poland for bunkering ships and for off-grid industrial customers for many years.