The regulation of the Council of Europe obliges member states whose territories do not have the necessary gas storage facilities to store at least 15 per cent of their annual gas consumption in terminals located in other member states.
The purpose of Estonia’s strategic gas reserve is to ensure the primary preservation of gas supply in case of large-scale supply interruptions.
The basis for the formation of Estonia’s strategic natural gas reserve is the order of the Government of the Republic to purchase a quantity of gas for the reserve that would correspond to approximately 20 per cent of Estonia’s average annual gas consumption or would cover the consumption of one month of the heating period. Therefore, the Estonian government has set a more ambitious goal for the volume of the strategic gas reserve than the requirement of the European Commission.
Estonia’s natural gas consumption has significantly decreased in 2022 and is estimated to be 3.5 TWh in the next 12-month period instead of the average figure of 5 TWh in previous years.
The volume of the strategic gas reserve managed by the Estonian Stockpiling Agency is 1 TWh and it corresponds to 28 per cent of the demand forecasted for the new annual consumption period.
The ESPA stores strategic natural gas reserves in Latvia in the Inčulkans underground gas storage.