Volume of natural gas transported by Conexus Baltic Grid has increased by 40% this year

The volume of natural gas transported by JSC Conexus Baltic Grid (Conexus), a single natural gas transmission and storage system operator, increased by 40% in the first half of the year compared to the same period in 2018, and according to the financial report of the company for the first six months it has reached 14.8 TWh.

In the first half of 2019, Conexus provided for the uninterrupted supply of natural gas to natural gas users in Latvia and neighbouring countries. Natural gas injection in 2019 started on 1 May, which was significantly earlier than last year, increasing the volume of transported natural gas by 40% compared to 2018. Starting from 15 January 2019, the company offered its customers to purchase three kinds of storage capacity products: a market product, a grouped capacity product and a two-year grouped capacity product.

The natural gas extraction season at Inčukalns Underground Gas Storage Facility (Inčukalns UGSF) ended on 30 April, during which 10.8 TWh of active natural gas was removed from the storage. The 2019/2020 injection season was started considerably sooner, resulting in the volume of reservations exceeding the estimates with 15.7 TWh of natural gas reserved in the Inčukalns UGSF, which is 4.6 times more than in the same period a year earlier.

Zane Kotāne, Chairperson of the Board of JSC Conexus Baltic Grid: “With the timely start of the reservation and more favourable prices for natural gas, the injection of natural gas this year was started much earlier, resulting in a significant increase in the volume of transported natural gas. The growing demand for storage services evidences that the storage is a strategically important asset for the entire region and we need to expand the storage capacity to make it even more attractive to the single market in the future.”

In the first half year, Conexus made a profit of EUR 7,311 thousand euros, which is 27% more than last year, and EBITDA reached 15,388 thousand euros, up 10% from 2018. The above financial performance indicators of the Company were positively impacted by higher volumes of natural gas transported in May and June, despite warm weather in the first quarter of 2019, which reduced the transmission segment revenue during the winter months.