Warm weather reduced consumption of natural gas in Q3

Consumption of natural gas was reduced by 9% to 589 gigawatt-hours in the last quarter. According to the Estonian Weather service, the air temperature of the past three months was 2-2.7 degrees above normal.

During the same period, natural gas imports dropped by 8% to 596 gigawatt-hours.

Transit through pipelines in southeastern Estonia in the last quarter was up by 40%, i.e. almost 11 terawatt-hours compared to the same period last year.

In September, high temperatures caused the consumption of natural gas to decrease by 15% to 212 gigawatt-hours compared to the same month of the previous year. Last month, the import of natural gas in Estonia decreased by 14% compared to September of last year and totalled 216 gigawatt-hours. The minimum amount of natural gas entering Estonia in 24 hours was four gigawatt-hours and the maximum amount was 15 gigawatt-hours.

In September, the reserve capacity of the transmission pipeline was almost 38 gigawatt-hours, dropping 9% in comparison to September of the previous year.

4.2 terawatt-hours of natural gas was imported from Russia to Latvia through the transmission pipeline in southeastern Estonia in September.

Last month, the price of natural gas traded on the GET Baltic Lithuanian gas exchange was 23.93 euros per megawatt-hour in the Estonian bidding area, showing an increase of 7% compared to August. In Latvia, the price went up by more than 4%, reaching 25.12 euros and in Lithuania the increase in price was nearly 6%, reaching 24.67 euros per megawatt-hour. The average system price in the Baltic Sea region went up by 6% to 24.73 euros per megawatt-hour. Comparable price on the Finnish Kaasupörssi also increased to 24.03 euros per megawatt-hour, constituting an almost 5% increase in price.

As a result of the balance settlement in September, the shares of balance providers’ portfolios were the following based on consumption: