• Natural Gas News

    Estonia-Finland Gas Link Ready

Summary

The pipeline will open up the Finnish gas market to competition.

by: Joseph Murphy

Posted in:

Natural Gas & LNG News, Europe, Corporate, Import/Export, Infrastructure, Pipelines, News By Country, Estonia, Finland

Estonia-Finland Gas Link Ready

A pipeline enabling Finland to access northern European gas supplies via Estonia has been commissioned, one of its operators reported on December 11.

Construction of the Balticconnector link was completed in November, one month ahead of schedule, Finland’s Baltic Connector said. It is due to start commercial flows on January 1, opening up the Finnish gas market, which gets almost all its supplies from Russia, to competition.

The project cost €250mn ($280mn), with 75% covered by grants from the EU’s Connecting Europe Facility. Its comprises a 77-km offshore section between Inkoo in Finland and Paldiski in Estonia, as well as 66 km of onshore pipes.

Its flow capacity is more than 2.6bn m3/yr in both directions - more than enough to cover Finland's consumption in recent years.