Smaller terminals needed

  • 2011-06-15
  • From wire reports

TALLINN - Estonia will not gain anything if the Baltic countries’ liquefied gas terminal will be built in either Latvia or Lithuania, because very little liquefied gas can be shipped from Latvia to Estonia currently, Estonian energy company Eesti Energi CEO Sandor Liive said in an interview with the Latvian daily Diena. “To Estonia, the terminal will only be beneficial if it is built in Estonia or north of the country. Furthermore, producing electricity from liquefied gas is unlikely to attract much investment, because currently there is just one supplier of liquefied gas to Estonia,” he added, reports Nozare.lv.

Building one major terminal for the Baltic countries and Finland and new interconnections with impressive investment amounts has also been discussed in Estonia; however, no agreement has been reached over the past few years, because each of the said countries wants to have the terminal built in its territory, said Liive.
“I believe that we should rather talk about smaller-scale projects. At the moment, it is already possible to load gas from a large ship into a smaller one, and supply liquefied gas to a smaller terminal. In Estonia’s case, the terminal could have a capacity of 1.5 billion cubic meters, which would be enough for our needs because we consume around 800 million cubic meters of gas a year,” notes Liive.

He says, though, that he supports construction of a liquefied gas terminal in Latvia because it certainly needs one, but this kind of solution is not good for Estonia. At the same time, Liive says that Estonia is interested in construction of a nuclear plant in Lithuania’s Visaginas location.

Liive reiterates that two prospective partners have bid to participate in the project, which is a very much needed and important project for the Baltic countries. “Without nuclear power, we will be overly dependent on imports,” says Liive, adding that Estonia’s needs are fully provided for with oil shale, which is not the case in Latvia and Lithuania.

Projects to supply electricity derived from oil shale, however, face future hurdles as well. According to initial plans, Eesti Energia’s council was expected to make the most expensive investment decision ever in the state, on June 16, to build a new oil shale-based power station. That will now most likely not happen and the energy firm is holding talks to postpone implementing the construction contract.