Baltic Energy Market Interconnection Plan GRIP 2017

4.5 Latvia

There is no indigenous gas production in Latvia, and all gas consumed in the country is imported from Russia through two 700mm pipelines. This is performed only during the warm period of the year (April-September) when part of the received gas is injected into Inčukalns Underground Gas Storage, while the rest is delivered directly to consumers. During winter, gas from the underground facility was formerly delivered to Latvian customers, as well as customers in Estonia and NW Russia thus securing reliable gas supply for the whole region. However, in summer of 2016 only volumes of gas to be used by customers in Latvia were injected into the storage following the decision of Gazprom not to use Incukalns UGS for customers in Russia since after enhancement of gas transmission network in the Russian NW region there are enough capacities in the network to supply cus- tomers directly by pipeline. Latvia has gas connection to Lithuania. Due to several reasons during 2015, the natural gas price in Lithuania was lower than in Estonia. Almost 100 million m³ were delivered from Lithuania to Estonia via Latvia through this connection. This interconnection is also used in emergency cases for gas supplied to Lithuania or in cases of construction works or other situations when there is a need to supply some customers in Latvia from the Lithuanian side. It is expected that the importance of this interconnection will increase after the gas market opens in Latvia in 2017 and, especially, after commissioning the gas interconnection between Poland in Lithuania (GIPL). The project of enhancing the Latvia–Lithuania interconnection is included in the list of the Projects of Common Interest. Latvian gas is interconnected with Estonia. However, it can currently only be used to supply gas supply to Estonia from Latvia and it was mainly used to supply custom- ers in Estonia from Inčukalns UGS. Since the first natural gas supplies to Latvia began in 1962, part of the gas network is old and the entire transmission system is designed for annual consumption of up to 4 bcm, more than two times the current consumption level in Latvia. After privatisation of JSC “Latvijas Gāze” in 1997, assessment of the technical state of infrastructure was carried out and the entire gas supply system in Latvia was modernised step-by-step. Extensive modernisation was performed over the past decade, and from 1997 until the end of 2015, JSC “Latvijas Gāze” spent 447 million euros modernising and improving safety.

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BEMIP Gas Regional Investment Plan 2017