Amber Grid, the Lithuanian natural gas transmission system operator (TSO), has announced that gas consumption in Lithuania fell by 35% in 2022. Gas consumption decreased by more than a third due to high gas prices that reduced domestic fertilizer production and gas-fired power generation at Lithuanian power plants. A relatively warm winter and the decision to use mazut to heat the capital Vilnius can also explain the decrease in consumption.
However, Amber Grid’s transmission system transported 21% more gas than in 2021. This change was notably driven by a tenfold increase in gas flows to Latvia and the opening of a new gas pipeline interconnection with Poland (GIPL) in May 2022. According to the TSO, in 2022, 29% of the gas was transported to Latvia, Estonia and Finland (a tenfold increase compared to 2021. The GIPL pipeline transported 6.4 TWh of gas to Poland and 2.3 TWh to Lithuania between May and December 2022.
The Klaipėda LNG terminal accounted for 79% of the total gas transported into the system in 2022. Flows from Latvia accounted for almost 8% and flows from Poland for 5%. From January to March, around 8% of gas was transported through the Lithuania-Belarus interconnection. After Lithuania stopped importing Russian gas on the 1 April 2022, only gas intended for the Kaliningrad Oblast was transported via the Lithuania-Belarus interconnection (23 TWh in 2022).