EIA report identifies most suitable site for Lithuania's LNG terminal

This location has been seen as the most suitable site for the terminal for a couple of years.

Sweco Lietuva, which is part of Sweden’s Sweco, the leading Nordic environmental engineering, design and consulting concern, assessed two potential sites as part of its EIA, i.e. the site close to Pig’s Back island and a site in the Baltic Sea close to Būtingė.

“Environmental, technical and economic assessment and comparison of the alternatives of planned economic activity have shown that the most optimal alternative of planned economic activity is a site close to Pig’s Back,” Vytautas Belickas, the head of EIA department at Sweco Lietuva, said at a presentation of the EIA report on Thursday.

The final decision on planned economic activity will be taken by the environmental department of the Klaipėda region, hopefully, in the third quarter of this year.

Rolandas Žukas, CEO of LNG terminal, said that the approval of the report would mark the beginning of actual works for the construction of the facility.

Public consultations on the EIA report are expected to be launched in the second half of June. Consultations will also be held in Latvia.

The LNG terminal is expected to launch operations at the end of 2014. Under the plans the terminal of 2-3 billion cubic meters annual capacity should pump about 1 billion cubic meters of gas in its first year of operation.