Consumption of natural gas down by one-quarter in March

The consumption of natural gas in Estonia continued to drop in March, down by 26 percent compared to the same period in the previous year, to 562 gigawatt-hours.

Natural gas imports to Estonia were 27 per cent less than last March – 563 gigawatt-hours. The minimum amount of natural gas that entered the country in a 24-hour period was 12 gigawatt-hours and the maximum amount was 26 gigawatt-hours.

The reserve capacity of the transmission pipeline in March was 47 gigawatt hours, dropping by 4 per cent year over year. A total of 211 gigawatt-hours of natural gas was transported from Russia to Latvia through the transmission pipeline in south-eastern Estonia. Transit volume fell by 48 per cent compared to a year ago.

During the first quarter of this year, natural gas consumption was 1,917 gigawatt hours, which is 15 per cent less than during the same period last year. During the first three months of the year, 1,920 gigawatt-hours of natural gas was imported into Estonia – in other words, the decrease was 15 per cent.

During the first quarter, production of biomethane in Estonia was 15,167 megawatt-hours, of which 12,922 megawatt-hours was produced from wastewater sludge and 2,245 megawatt-hours was from manure and biomass. All of the biomethane produced in Estonia was consumed in the transport sector.

Last month, the price of natural gas traded on the GET Baltic Lithuanian gas exchange was 19.39 euros per megawatt-hour in the Estonian bidding area, showing a decrease of over 11 percent compared to February. In Latvia, the price fell by about 12 per cent to 19.22 euros per megawatt-hour, and in Lithuania, the price fell by more than 10 per cent to 19.71 euros per megawatt-hour. The average system price in the Baltic Sea region decreased by close to 11 per cent to 19.63 euros per megawatt-hour. The comparable price on the Finnish Kaasupörssi remained unchanged in March – 24.65 euros per megawatt-hour.

As a result of the balance settlement in March, the balance providers’ portfolio shares were as follows based on consumption: