“Norwegian gas is the main competitor for Russian gas in Europe and it would be simply unwise to take no advantage of this situation,” she said in a telephone interview with BNS. Grybauskaitė discussed energy issues with Norway’s Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg.
Norway’s gas could be supplied to Lithuania through a liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal in Klaipėda once it was built, she said. Norway’s Hoegh LNG is building a vessel for the LNG facility.
“Norway is one of the key market players in the liquefied gas sector and we will be able to buy its gas actively in the future, once we have the terminal,” Grybauskaitė said.
Russia’s gas concern Gazprom has been Lithuania’s sole supplier of natural gas so far.
President also said that the completion of an interconnection between Lithuanian and Swedish electricity grids in 2015 would open up a possibility for Lithuania to increase imports of electricity from Norway and to make more rational use of the Kruonis Pumped Storage Plant.
As estimated, Norwegian electricity might account for up to 35 percent of Lithuania’s electricity imports from Scandinavia and would thus enable Vilnius to reduce the volumes of its imports from Russia considerably, Grybauskaitė said.
Lithuania has been relying on imports, mostly from Russia, for more than half of its electricity needs since the shut-down of Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant (INPP) several years ago.
