Lithuania’s natural gas supply and trading company Lietuvos Dujų Tiekimas, part of the state-controlled Lietuvos Energija, said Monday it bought a cargo of US liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Houston-based Cheniere.
The first US LNG cargo to land in Lithuania is expected in the second half of August.
Cheniere ships LNG worldwide from its Sabine Pass liquefaction terminal in Louisiana, currently the only such facility to export US shale gas overseas.
Lietuvos Dujų Tiekimas said it would store a part of the natural gas purchased from Cheniere at a lower price in summer in Latvian Incukalns natural gas storage facility.
This is not the first time that Lithuania is showing interest in US LNG as first contracts with Cheniere Marketing International, a unit of Cheniere, were signed by another Lietuvos Energija company, Litgas.
Litgas signed a master trade agreement with the U.S. company at the end of February 2015. However, Litgas did not buy any US LNG cargoes yet.
Lithuania, the largest of the three Baltic nations, started importing the chilled fuel via Höegh LNG’s FSRU Independence in December 2014 in order to reduce its dependence on Russian pipeline gas supplies. The LNG is being imported under a deal Litgas has with Norway’s Statoil.
Mantas Mikalajūnas, CEO of Lietuvos Dujų Tiekimas said this purchase is a “part of our constant striving for optimal diversification of sources of supply exploiting market opportunities and seasonal price fluctuations.”
“This allows Lietuvos Dujų Tiekimas to offer customers in Lithuania and other Baltic States competitive prices and flexible conditions of supply”, he added.
LNG World News Staff