The Cabinet decided on Wednesday that it would be up to the commission to decide whether to postpone the deadline by two months if Lietuvos Dujos makes a reasoned request for such an extension.
Last week, the government planned to extend the deadline until 31 May.
"The government passed a resolution that Lietuvos Dujos may make a reasoned request to the National Control Commission for Prices and Energy to extend that deadline until 31 May and that the commission may extend that deadline. Thus, we are keeping the agreement, stated in our joint statement with the European Commission and Gazprom, but we are surprised that Gazprom is going to arbitration and believe that this is not fully consistent with the spirit of our agreement," Energy Minister Arvydas Sekmokas told reporters after the Cabinet meeting.
The minister said that the government's decision was a reaction to Gazprom's move, announced last Thursday, to go to international arbitration, even though the parties had agreed that the plan submission deadline would be extended until late May.
“Major changes have occurred after the [government’s] sitting – Gazprom has filed a suit with arbitration against Lithuania. Another thing was that, despite arbitration, the shareholders’ representatives on Lietuvos Dujos’ board approved the principles for the implementation of asset unbundling plan and authorized Lietuvos Dujos to submit such a plan to the shareholders’ meeting on 23 March,” Energy Minister Arvydas Sekmokas said at the government’s meeting on Wednesday.
The government already discussed an identical proposal last Wednesday, under which the plan should be worked out by 31 May.
The Cabinet intended to give Lithuania’s gas imports and transportation company more time to study the methods for the unbundling of operations and control so that the company could submit a comprehensive description of the chosen method together with the action plan, the Energy Ministry said on Wednesday.
The government decided to extend the deadline for drafting the plan by two months after 27 February talks with the representatives of the European Commission and Russia’s gas giant Gazprom.
On 27 February, representatives of the government, Gazprom and the Commission agreed on the necessity to open talks immediately and solve the problems related with the unbundling of operations and transit of gas to Kaliningrad, terms of gas purchase and its future volumes as well as the assessment of the split company so as to work out the final schedule by the end of May and implement the reorganization of the gas sector by the end of 2014.
Despite that, Gazprom announced last Thursday that it had filed a suit with international arbitration in order to protect its investments in Lithuania.
Energy Minister said on Tuesday that his reaction to Gazprom’s move to seek international arbitration against the government was “calm and restrained” and Lithuania was considering possible countermeasures.
Lietuvos Dujos, which is owned by Germany’s E.ON Ruhrgas and Gazprom, will have to submit the unbundling plan to the National Control Commission for Prices and Energy by 31 May.
Lietuvos Dujos’ shareholders will discuss the unbundling of the company’s operations into three companies at the end of March. Natural gas transmission pipelines and other infrastructure necessary for transmission operations are planned to be spun off into a new company. Unofficial sources say that the new company will be owned by Lietuvos Dujos' current shareholders -- Germany's E.ON Ruhrgas, Russia's Gazprom and the Lithuanian government.
Lietuvos Dujos will continue to operate as a gas supplier, while its distribution operations and distribution pipelines will be taken over by a newly established subsidiary.
On 23 March, Lietuvos Dujos‘ shareholders should authorize the board to work out the terms of unbundling and to adopt other decisions required for the unbundling of operations.
The news portal eversus.lt reports that the board of Lietuvos Dujos will submit draft decisions, which it has already approved, to the extraordinary shareholders’ meeting. The decisions stipulate that, following reorganization, Lietuvos Dujos will deal in the supply of gas to users whereas the distribution activities will be taken over by a subsidiary company.
Gas transportation grids will be spun off into a new company with a proportionate shareholders’ structure. By analogy to the current structure of Lietuvos Dujos, the largest shareholders of the new company will be E.ON Ruhrgas and Gazprom, which own 38.9 percent and 37.1 percent, respectively, of Lietuvos Dujos, and the Energy Ministry will have a 17.7 percent interest.
Lietuvos Dujos has not yet unveiled the name of the new company, which will operate the gas transportation network.
