Prime Minister Algirdas Butkevicius announced on Friday that a 5,000 cubic metre onshore liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal will be constructed in Klaipeda. In addition, a small vessel for transportation of gas will be purchased, reports LETA/ELTA.

"We reached a decision at the sitting of the working group that Klaipedos Nafta has to start implementing another project: to build in its territory a small onshore 5,000 cubic metre capacity LNG terminal, which would be filled by a small gas carrier. We will use the small terminal to fill vehicles and gas will be transported to other territories," the prime minister said on Friday in Klaipeda, where he took part in the sitting of the commission for the implementation of the LNG terminal project.

The possibility to transport gas to Lithuanian towns via roads has been mentioned in the past. The head of Government says that Belarusian companies are now also interest in gas from the LNG terminal.

"We agreed that a small vessel will be ordered by Klaipedos Nafta together with one of the international companies, I would not like to mention its name. The vessel will be able to transport gas from the big terminal to the small one and also to fill other ships with gas," the head of Government said.

The floating storage and regasification unit which started operating last December should provide 1 billion cubic meters of LNG in 2015. Later the capacity will increase to 4 billion cubic metres.

The state owns 72.32% of Klaipedos Nafta shares.