The Poland-Lithuania gas interconnection (GIPL) has been ceremoniously opened today, on March 5, with the participation of the President of Latvia Egils Levits, the President of Lithuania Gitanas Nausėda, the President of Poland Andrzej Duda, the EU Commissioner for Energy Kadri Simson, as well as high-level officials of Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Poland.
Today is a historic moment not only for Lithuania and Poland, but also for the entire Baltic region, and this is another important way to diversify gas supplies and security of energy supply. Latvia and all the Baltic States will now be able to receive natural gas supplies not only from the Klaipeda liquefied natural gas terminal, but from any country and terminal in Europe, thereby expressing our strong commitment to refuse imports of Russian gas,” – the Minister of Economics Jānis Vitenbergs emphasises.
The open Jauniūnai gas compressor station is the terminal point of the 508 km GIPL pipeline in the territory of Lithuania and it has a capacity of 34.5 MW. The GIPL gas pipeline will connect Lithuania, other Baltic States and Finland to the European Union gas market diversifying the natural gas supply routes available to the region and thereby significantly strengthening the security of energy supply.
The launch of the Poland-Lithuania gas interconnection demonstrates the solidarity and commitment of countries of our region to address the most difficult issues in order to strengthen the region’s energy independence. In order to achieve the joint objective of strengthening the gas market in the region and ensuring the security of gas supplies, we still need to complete other regional gas infrastructure projects in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland and Poland,” the Minister of Economics indicated.
The GIPL project was launched on 11 May 2018, when the transmission system operators of the Baltic States and Poland completed the process of concluding a contract on covering the cross-border costs of the Poland-Lithuania gas interconnection project. The gas interconnection started functioning on 1 May 2022 ensuring gas flows in both Poland-Lithuania-Poland directions. GIPL will integrate the Baltic and Finnish gas market into the single European Union gas market diversifying access to alternative gas supply sources and increasing competition in the region. At the same time, the interconnection will increase the security and reliability of gas supply, as the capacity of supply increases and it will also provide an opportunity to apply solidarity measures among the Member States where necessary.