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VILNIUS, Lithuania, Apr 3 (AP): Lithuania says it has cut itself off entirely of gas imports from Russia, apparently becoming the first of the European Union\u2019s 27 nations using Russian gas to break its energy dependence upon Moscow.<\/p>\n
\u201cSeeking full energy independence from Russian gas, in response to Russia\u2019s energy blackmail in Europe and the war in Ukraine, Lithuania has completely abandoned Russian gas,\u201d Lithuania\u2019s energy ministry said in a statement late Saturday, adding that the measure took effect in the beginning of April.<\/p>\n
Lithuania managed to reduce imports of Russian gas to zero on Saturday, a move seen a milestone in achieving energy independence in the former Soviet republic of 2.8 million, the ministry said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are the first EU country among Gazprom\u2019s supply countries to gain independence from Russian gas supplies, and this is the result of a multi-year coherent energy policy and timely infrastructure decisions,\u201d Minister of Energy Dainius Kreivys said.<\/p>\n
Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda posted an upbeat tweet on his account and urged other European nations to do the same.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom this month on \u2014 no more Russian gas in Lithuania. Years ago, my country made decisions that today allow us with no pain to break energy ties with the aggressor. If we can do it, the rest of Europe can do it too!\u201d Nauseda tweeted.<\/p>\n
In 2015, nearly 100% of Lithuania\u2019s gas supplies derived from imports of Russian gas but the situation has changed drastically over the past years after the country built an off-shore LNG import terminal, launched in 2014, in the port city of Klaipeda.<\/p>\n
The energy ministry said from now on all gas for Lithuania\u2019s domestic consumption would be imported via Klaipeda\u2019s LNG terminal.<\/p>\n
Last year, some 26% of Lithuania\u2019s gas supplies derived from deliveries from a Russian gas pipeline while 62% came via Klaipeda\u2019s LNG terminal and the remaining 12% were imported from a gas storage in neighboring Latvia.<\/p>\n
Baltic neighbors Latvia and Estonia are also heavily dependent on Russian gas but the operator of Latvia\u2019s natural gas storage said none of the three Baltic states were importing Russian gas as of April 2.<\/p>\n
Uldis Bariss, the CEO of Conexus Baltic Grid, told Latvian media on Saturday that the Baltic gas market was currently being served by gas reserves stored underground in Latvia.<\/p>\n
Last month, Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte said Klaipeda\u2019s LNG terminal wouldn\u2019t have enough capacity to provide gas for all the three Baltic countries.<\/p>\n
As a solution, Estonia\u2019s government has proposed building a LNG terminal jointly with Latvia and Nordic neighbor Finland in the Estonian port town of Paldiski, which is not far from the capital, Tallinn.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
VILNIUS, Lithuania, Apr 3 (AP): Lithuania says it has cut itself off entirely of gas imports from Russia, apparently becoming the first of the European Union\u2019s 27 nations using Russian gas to break its energy dependence upon Moscow. \u201cSeeking full energy independence from Russian gas, in response to Russia\u2019s energy blackmail in Europe and the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-188011","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188011\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}