The amount of natural gas removed from Inčukalns underground gas storage increased by 56% this season

At the end of the season of withdrawal of Inčukakns underground gas storage (UGS) in 2020./2021., the amount of natural gas withdrawn from the storage has reached 17,6 TWh of active natural gas, which is 56% more than in the previous storage season, according to operational data from the single natural gas transmission and storage system operator JSC Conexus Baltic Grid (hereinafter Conexus).

In view of the cold weather weather this winter season, as well as the single natural gas market for Latvia, Estonia and Finland last year, the amount of natural gas withdrawn from storage has increased by 6.3 TWh compared to the previous season. Launching the season, storage pumped in the largest volume of active natural gas in recent years at 13.6 TWh. Overall, the system users stored an active natural gas of 21.3 TWh in the Inčukalns UGS.

Overall, the high demand for natural gas storage this season was influenced by a number of factors: the low natural gas price in the summer of 2020, as well as the single market for natural gas, opened on 1 January 2020, with Estonia and Finland actively participating, resulting in increased interest from system users in services of Inčukalns UGS.

The largest daily natural gas volume of 208.3 GWh was removed this season in February, while the largest monthly volume in the month of February was removed, reaching 4.6 TWh. In view of the results of this season, it is expected that demand for natural gas storage for Inčukalns UGS will remain high for the next injection cycle of 2021./2022.

Technical capacity of the new natural gas injection season determined at 23,6 TWh

According to the measurements and calculations made, Conexus has established the capacity of Inčukalns UGS to provide the maximum amount of active natural gas stored in storage, or storage capacity for the 2021./2022 storage cycle. The technical capacity for the 2021./2022 storage cycle is set at 23600,000 KWh.

As a result of the modernisation work carried out in Inčukalns UGS, storage flexibility has increased significantly, which requires two times less time to prepare and launch all gas compressor units than in previous seasons.