The Eastern Baltic LNG Terminal as a Prospect to Improve Security of Regional Gas Supply

One of the crucial issues in Europe at the moment is securing reliable gas supply. Achieving security of gas supply implies diversifying gas sources, while having enough supply, transportation, and storage capacity to meet demand peaks and supply interruptions. In 2013, the Baltic States still remain disintegrated from the rest of Europe in one crucial way: their natural gas infrastructure isolates them into “energy islands”. The Eastern Baltic Sea European Union (EU) member states of Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are the only ones which remain isolated from the present integrated EU natural gas transmission system. The gas demand in these isolated member states is approximately ten billion cubic meters (bm) of natural gas per year. The third energy package of EU proposes a new series of measures to promote competition and create a single European energy market. Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Finland now for the first time have a chance to secure their energy independence by connecting their natural gas systems with those of their European allies and evolving them into market-based trading systems. Liquefied natural gas (LNG) is an important energy source that contributes to energy security and diversity, therefore a concept of a regional LNG terminal has been proposed. In this paper the authors give an overview of the current situation and present possible future scenarios with the development of Eastern Baltic regional LNG terminal. 2013 is a crucial time as in September the decision will be made regarding weather the regional LNG terminal will be chosen as a project of common interest in the trans-European energy networks. Keywords—LNG; security of supply; regional terminals