Based on information provided by Gazprom to its shareholders, the price of gas for Lithuania should have surged by 45 percent, from 311 to 450 euros per 1,000 cubic meters, since the start of 2012.
A Gazprom representative, who asked not to be named, told BNS that what the company provides to its shareholders each year are conditional projections for the future.
"These are conditional forecasts, rather than exact prices. These will depend on the situation in the market, price fluctuations in the oil product basket. Besides, Gazprom and Lietuvos Dujos have a long-term contract and will keep to all contractual obligations. Specific agreements are confidential information," he told BNS.
According to information provided by Gazprom to its shareholder meeting in June, the company in 2014 plans to sell up to 1.5 billion cubic meters of gas to Lithuania's natural gas import and transportation company Lietuvos Dujos (Lithuanian Gas) for 675 million euros, or 450 euros per 1,000 cubic meters. The Russian supplier provided the same figures in June 2012 when it unveiled its price estimates for 2013.
Gazprom told its shareholders in June 2011 that it would supply up to 1.72 billion cubic meters of gas to Lietuvos Dujos in 2012 for up to 535 million euros in total, or 311 euros per 1,000 cubic meters.
Lithuanian Energy Minister Jaroslav Neverovič has said recently that the country is currently paying around 500 US dollars for Russian gas.
"We are paying around 500 US dollars, while, to our knowledge, Germany is paying 100 US dollars less," he told reporters in Brussels last week.
Daiva Rimašauskaitė, the energy minister's spokeswoman, has told BNS that Lithuania is buying Russian gas at a 480-US-dollar price at the border.
Alexander Medvedev, the CEO of Gazprom's export arm, Gazprom Export, said in early June that the average price of Russian gas supplied to Europe this year could decline by 5.5-8 percent to 370-380 US dollars per 1,000 cubic meters, down from last year's average of 402 dollars.
