Latvijas gāze JSC (LG) has secured enough gas for its clients to last the entire first half of 2023, as announced by the company’s chairman Aigars Kalvītis on Wednesday, 30 November.
He mentioned that ‘households can rest calm – there is enough gas to last the winter’. However, the company mentioned it cannot reveal exactly how much gas there is, as it is a commercial secret.
Previously the Latvian government ordered LG to secure 1.15 TWh of natural gas in Inčukalns underground gas storage facility by 30 September 2022. This is the volume of gas needed to provide clients with heating during winter. Between 1 October 2022 and 30 April 2023, however, the required volume of gas stored at the facility by the first day of each consecutive month needs to be equal to the difference between 1.15 TWh and the volume of gas provided to users between 1 October 2022 and the last day of the previous month. The public trader has no rights to hand these gas reserves to other system users.
On 1 September LG announced the volume of gas the company owns in Inčukalns is only 0.2946 TWh.
The company reported not having enough gas to provide households and therefore no way to fulfil the requirement of the Energy Law in regards to gas reserves. LG reported at the time that it would continue working on solutions.
The Ministry of Economics, on the other hand, previously made an announcement that there is more natural gas than necessary to satisfy households’ demand stored at Inčukalns on behalf of LG. Gas transmission and storage system operator Conexus Baltic Grid JSC confirmed that the volume of gas reserves owned by LG is larger than what is required by law.
Kalvītis, on the other hand, told the LTV programme Kas notiek Latvijā? on 31 August that the volume of gas cited by Conexus is owned by other traders and that LG does not have the right to use it.
LG’s largest shareholders are Russian Gazprom (34%), international investment fund Marguerite Gas II.S.a.r.l. (28,97%), German government’s recently nationalised company Uniper Ruhrgas International GmbH (18,26%) and Itera Latvija LLC (16%).
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