Lithuanian company to purchase gas from U.S. supplier

Lithuania will start buying gas from U.S. company Koch Supply & Trading as of 2017, the Baltic country's gas import and distribution company Lietuvos Duju Tiekimas (Lithuanian Gas Supply) said Wednesday.

Lithuanian company will purchase gas from Koch Supply via LNG terminal based in the port city Klaipeda, Lietuvos Duju Tiekimas announced in a statement.

"The agreement will let our company ensure diversified and reliable gas supplies," Mantas Mikalajunas, Lietuvos Duju Tiekimas CEO, was quoted as saying.

"We can expect shipments from different production sites, the United States is not excluded," Mikalajunas added.

Lietuvos Duju Tiekimas is a company operated by state-owned group Lietuvos Energija (Lithuanian Energy).

"Alternative sources of imports gives us a possibility to react to the situation in the markets more flexibly, combine different scenarios of supply, pricing and duration of contracts," Dalius Misiunas, chairman and CEO of Lietuvos Energija, said in the statement.

Both Lithuanian customers and businesses can benefit from increased competition among LNG suppliers, Misiunas noted.

According to the Lithuanian company, gas purchased from Koch Supply & Trading will amount to approximately one third of all gas demand projected by Lietuvos Duju Tiekimas for the year 2017. The agreed gas price and pricing methods were not publicly disclosed.

Lithuania has been buying gas from Russia's Gazprom and Norway's Statoil so far.

Koch Supply & Trading is a part of Koch Industries group, a U.S. multinational corporation with subsidiaries involved in manufacturing, trading and investments. Endit