Kaliningrad spent five days without gas through Lithuania: checked full autonomy

After switching to an autonomous power supply mode due to the withdrawal of the Baltic States from the BRELL power ring, the Kaliningrad Region spent five days without gas supplies through Lithuania.

There were no deliveries of Russian gas through Lithuania to Kaliningrad for five days last week. This is evidenced by the data of the platform of the GTS operators of the EU ENTSOG countries. From February 18 to February 22, gas transit through the Kotlovka point on the border of Belarus and Lithuania and the Sakiai point on the border of Lithuania and the Kaliningrad region was not carried out.

If the average daily deliveries in the previous days of February amounted to 6.4 million cubic meters per day, then within five days they fell to zero and only on February 23 transit began to recover. On February 24, it has already amounted to 5.6 million cubic meters. Neither Gazprom nor the Lithuanian operator Amber Grid have commented on the situation. The latter always reports on preventive maintenance when the transit is transferred to Latvia.

This time there was no alternative overland supply.

Obviously, in the conditions of the Baltic States' exit from the BRELL energy ring with Russia and Belarus checked the Kaliningrad region for full autonomy and gas supplies were carried out from a storage facility in the exclave and the Marshal Vasilevsky regasification tanker, which is located near the Kaliningrad Region and is an alternative to gas transit through Lithuania.

Marshal Vasilevsky can store more than 90 million cubic meters of gas on board in the form of LNG, while Kaliningrad did not receive a little more than 30 million cubic meters without transit. And while tankers do not go to the regasification terminal to restore its reserves.

As EADaily reported, on February 8-9, the Baltic countries left the BRELL energy ring and synchronized with the EU power grid. In turn, the Kaliningrad region switched to work in an isolated mode. Governor Alexey Besprozvannykh reported that consumers are stably provided by three power plants: Kaliningrad TPP-2, Pregolskaya TPP and Talakhovskaya TPP.

After leaving BRELL, Lithuanian Prime Minister Gintautas Palutskas said that Lithuania could influence gas transit to Kaliningrad, but sees no reason to use this to put pressure on Russia.

"If we talk in general about some kind of demonstration of force, then if we want decent behavior from other states, although our beliefs or expectations do not give grounds, I really do not think that today we should try to threaten or act demonstratively, because I do not see any grounds for this," Gintautas Palukas said..