Baltic countries agree on common transitional gas market measures

  • 2017-06-15
  • LETA/TBT Staff

VILNIUS – As the Baltic countries and Finland are moving toward the creation of a common gas market, the countries' energy market regulators have agreed to apply transitional market measures starting next year in order to lower trade barriers.

"The key task for the energy regulators is to expedite the processes under their control," Inga Ziliene, chairwoman of Lithuania's National Commission for Energy Control and Prices, said in a press release.

"Estonians and Latvians now face certain natural gas trade barriers if they want to purchase some natural gas from the LNG terminal in Lithuania. The existing natural gas market model does not encourage active trade as the price of natural gas is not competitive," she said.

It is planned to apply transitional gas transmission tariffs starting in 2018. The same natural gas transmission tariff will be applied at entry points to the Baltic region and the taxation of cross-border natural gas flows between the Baltic countries will be eliminated.

A common Baltic gas market is expected to be created in 2020, later to be joined by Finland.