The price of natural gas will depend on geopolitical developments, said Chairman of the Board of Latvijas gāze Aigars Kalvītis in an interview to TV3 programme “900 seconds” on Friday, the 13th of December.
“Gas prices next summer will largely depend on geopolitical developments,” said Kalvītis.
He also mentioned that the current geopolitical situation is agitated, and gas and oil are the resources that are under direct influence from “big politics”.
Kalvītis also mentioned the current gas prices is higher than expected. “We didn’t expect the price to reach 45-46 EUR/MWh,” he said, adding that it was initially expected gas price to remain below 40 EUR/MWh this winter.
The turnover of the “Latvijas gāze” concern last year was EUR 159.819 million, which is 4.4 times less than in 2022, when natural gas prices experienced a huge increase and the company suffered a loss of EUR 56.911 million as opposed to profits a year earlier.
28.97% of Latvijas gāze is owned by Rietumu Bank, 28.85% by Energy Investments, 18.26% by German Uniper Ruhrgas International, 16% by Itera Latvija LLC, while 6.15% is owned by the Lithuanian company Haupas. According to “Firmas.lv”, 70% of the capital of “Energy Investments” is owned by Kalvitis, but 15% is owned by Egils Lapsalis and Elita Dreimane.