Equinor books Klaipeda LNG terminal capacity

June 7, 2021, by Sanja Pekic

Norwegian energy company Equinor has booked Lithuania’s Klaipeda LNG terminal regasification capacity.

The operator of oil and LNG terminals Klaipėdos Nafta (KN) has completed the annual procedure of allocating LNG terminal capacity for the new gas year starting on 1 October 2021 and lasting until 30 September 2022.

Customers, including Equinor, will use the pre-ordered 8.9 terawatt-hours LNG terminal regasification capacity during the gas year.

8.4 terawatt-hours were distributed during the last year’s annual capacity allocation procedure. Additional 12.3 terawatt-hours of LNG were also ordered during the gas year.

The company says that the largest number of capacities in the entire history of the LNG terminal was ordered this year.

“Not only the existing customers but also the Norwegian energy company Equinor, which is planning to support its operations in the Baltic Sea region, have decided in advance to use the services and benefits of the LNG terminal,” said Mindaugas Navikas, chief sales officer of KN.

Navikas stresses that the LNG terminal has the opportunity to flexibly respond to relevant market changes and adjust reloading and regasification needs accordingly at the terminal. Due to the constantly changing prices of natural gas in the global and European markets, the terminal’s customers more often choose to purchase LNG cargo from the spot market and order the necessary capacity during the course of the gas year.

During the current gas year of 2021 (1 October 2020 to 1 June 2021), 49 LNG carriers have been accepted at the LNG terminal, compared to 50 in the same period of the previous year, and another eleven LNG carriers are expected by the end of the gas year. During this period, 2 million cubic metres of LNG have been brought to Lithuania, most of which came from the USA.

The total amount of LNG terminal capacity to be allocated is 3.75 billion cubic metres or 44,625,000 megawatt-hours per year, applying a natural gas gross calorific value of 11.90 kWh/m3.