During the day, market participants have booked all additional available capacity for the next injection season in Inčukalns underground gas storage

During the day, market participants have reserved all additional available capacity for the 2020/2021 injection season in the Inčukalns underground gas storage (IUGS), informs joint natural gas and transmission operator AS “Conexus Baltic Grid” (Conexus). The technical storage capacity for new injection season is set at 21,525 TWh, while the volume of reservations made in both rounds has exceeded the total storage capacity by approximately 7 times.

Already in March, when first round of capacity booking started for the next year's cycle, market interest was so high that booked capacity exceeded storage capacity available at that moment by about 4.2 times. The volume of additional available capacity reservations has also confirmed the high interest of market participants in the services provided by IUGS.

Zane Kotāne, Conexus Chair of the Board: “Traders' interest in using Inčukalns storage services next season has been influenced by two key factors – the price of natural gas and establishment of a common market that has made storage more accessible to a wider range of traders outside the country's borders. In recent months, the number of market participants registered both in Latvia and abroad has also increased, thereby increasing competition in the market, resulting in storage capacity currently being reserved in full, which is a benefit for the energy security of both Latvia and the whole region."

For the next cycle of 2020/2021 IUGS, three storage products were offered to market participants: market product, bundled capacity product and two-year bundled capacity product. The volume of booking applications for the bundled capacity product reached 75,9 TWh in total, exceeding the available capacity for the bundled capacity product approximately 7.4 times, while the number of applications for the two-year bundled capacity product bookings reached 10.5 TWh, which is 5.3 times more than amount of two-year product offered in storage this year. An application for market product booking from users was not received during this storage cycle.

The capacity booked in both rounds is allocated among market participants proportionally according to the conditions of the Regulator, and free capacity is no longer available during the 2020/2021 year storage cycle.