Lithuania’s Achema seeks short-term LNG supply

Private fertilizer company and Lithuania’s largest gas consumer Achema has issued a short-term tender

seeking up to 21 LNG cargoes over three years, traders in Asia said.

Achema had requested for offers to be linked to either the UK’s NBP or the Netherlands’ TTF gas hubs

plus a constant, traders familiar with the tender said. Offers were due on 16 May, with the validity

period ending on 20 May. The tender was issued in the  previous week.

However, another trader said Achema plans to shortlist two sellers from the pool of participants and

award the tender by end-September this year instead. This could not be confirmed with the buyer

immediately.

The independent buyer is expected to receive around seven LNG deliveries at the Klaipeda Nafta LNG

terminal every year through the tender. The Klaipeda Nafta terminal is operated by state-owned LITGAS.

First delivery is scheduled to start from January 2017 to December 2019, with each cargo size specified

between 120,000 and 150,000 cubic metres (cbm), traders said. Total delivered LNG volume is

estimated at around 20 trillion Btu (TBtu) by end of  the contract.

While Achema is flexible on the supply sources of the LNG, it has specified its preference for lean

volumes. The tender, if awarded, would be Achema’s second LNG supply deal this year. The buyer

agreed an NBP-linked deal with Norway’s state-owned gas producer Statoil in January 2016.

The fertilizer company is estimated to use up to 1.3 billion cubic metres of natural gas annually, which is

half of Lithuania’s entire domestic consumption.

The country consumed 2.6bcm of gas in 2015, with LNG imports taking just 1.5-2.0% of the total volume,

according to estimates from LITGAS.

Lithuania was the first country in the Baltics to start importing LNG.

It received seven LNG cargoes as of May this year, compared with the six imported over the whole of

2015, ICIS shipping analytics platform LNG Edge  showed.

NGS INDIA