Energy, EU – Baltic States, Gas, Lithuania, Transport

Lithuania pays Norwegian company Hoegh LNG Ltd EUR 151,500 daily. A total of EUR 521 million will have to be paid to the Norwegian company for the lease, whereas the company built the vessel in South Korea for EUR 243 million. Experts have raised doubts in the economic benefit of the project. "Even from today's perspective, taking into account the cost of the terminal and gas it provides, it is difficult to say when and if the terminal is going to pay off. The terminal will contribute considerably only from the standpoint of security," said Valdas Lukosevicius, Associate Professor of the Department of Thermal and Nuclear Energy at Kaunas University of Technology.

According to the expert, the cost of the terminal could have been significantly lower. "() Even before the launch of the project I said many times that nobody is building such big terminals to satisfy the needs of one energy-isolated country by 200%. They build them to satisfy 20, 30 or 50% of the demand. It is much cheaper this way and all the gas is used. But a terminal of this size creates problems, companies are obligated to purchase a share of more expensive gas from the terminal," said Lukosevicius. According to him, business is serving the terminal and not the other way around. "What would happen if consumers had to pay for a nuclear power plant and its expenses as well?" questioned the scientist.

In addition, he said that the real impact of the terminal will emerge when Gazprom compensations for incorrectly calculated gas prices are no longer included in gas tariffs. "Gas supplied by the terminal is somewhat cheaper than by Gazprom, but when the enormous taxes for maintaining the terminal are added, then the price is the same. We can only be pleased that the price has not increased as Gazprom compensation is included in tariffs for consumers. However it is difficult to expect that the price of gas supplied by the terminal will not grow once compensations end," said Lukosevicius.