At its meeting of 19 April 2022, the Cabinet of Ministers (CM) read the information on gas supply and electricity grid synchronisation with Europe prepared by the Ministry of Economics (ME), as well as supported amendments to the Energy Law.
CM decided to conceptually support that in the short-term the implementation of the Paldiski floating liquefied natural gas regasification terminal project is significant for strengthening energy supply security. It is expected that, as the first step, the Minister of Economics Jānis Vitenbergs will sign a legally and financially unbinding memorandum of understanding with the Minister of Economic Affairs and Communications of Estonia and the Minister of Economic Affairs and Employment of Finland, for the purposes of starting deep cooperation in the implementation of this project.
At the same time, CM conceptually supported the implementation of a liquefied natural gas terminal creation project in Latvia. In addition, CM instructed ME to provide by the beginning of June 2022 an evaluation of the identified potential benefits and costs of liquefied natural gas terminals by the beginning of June offering the most optimal solution to ensure the security of Latvia’s natural gas supply in a cost-efficient way.
The CM decision also provides that AS “Latvenergo” purchases natural gas in joint cooperation with interested legal consumers of natural gas reserving the necessary capacity in the Klaipeda liquefied natural gas terminal in Q4 2022.
CM also conceptually supported that there would be no natural gas supplies from the Russian Federation starting from 1 January 2023 as provided for by amendments to the Energy Law offered for the second reading by the Economic, Agricultural, Environmental and Regional Policy Commission of the Saeima.
At the same time, MC supported the draft law “Amendments to the Energy Law” (hereinafter referred to as the Draft Law), which provides for the creation of an energy supply emergency stock, which will be natural gas emergency stocks owned by the state. The main task of the stocks will be to ensure a continuous supply of natural gas and prevent an energy crisis.
Therefore, after the draft law is approved at the Saeima, in Q4 of this year AS “Latvenergo” will ensure purchasing on behalf of the state of energy supply emergency stocks amounting to approximately 2 TW ensuring that the origin of natural gas is not Russia.