There will be sufficient quantities of natural gas in the coming heating season, the Okoli underground storage facility has been filled to 98% of its capacity but care should be taken to use gas and energy in general sensibly, the Croatian Gas Association (HSUP) said at its meeting on Thursday.

Addressing the meeting of the HSUP, chairman Dalibor Pudic said that Croatian, as well as European, gas storage facilities were filled a lot more than they used to be at this time of the year in previous years.

The situation in Croatia is very good because in addition to domestic production, we also have an LNG terminal and a gas storage facility, which is good for the security of supply, Pudic stressed.

He noted that supply security was unquestionable while prices for households would be stable until 31 March 2023. However, after that date, it is not certain what will be happening with gas prices, Pudic added.

“We should definitely work on further reducing consumption because we waste energy. Household consumption could be reduced by 20-30% if people behave sensibly. People should not be wearing short sleeves indoors in winter,” he said.

He noted that the LNG terminal on the northern Adriatic island of Krk was operating at full capacity and was fully used up.

The high price of natural gas has had a spillover effect on other products and gas no longer has an effect of 1.5 to 2% on GDP but of up to 10%, he said, assessing positively the government’s decision to help households and businesses with regard to energy prices.

“As far as gas supply is concerned, Croatia’s situation is among the better ones in the EU, we have the LNG terminal, our own production that covers 30% of consumption, and we have a good gas infrastructure,” he concluded, adding that households and businesses would have a good and secure gas supply this season.

The State Secretary at the Economy and Sustainable Development Ministry, Ivo Milatic, said that so far Croatia had made good decisions regarding gas.

In a comment on a recent case of illegal gas sales at INA, he said that nobody had been aware of that tragic situation, with INA’s gas having been sold at ridiculously low prices.

He said that the Okoli gas storage facility was 98% full and that it was a matter of days before it was fully ready for the season.

Milatić repeated that the capacity of the LNG terminal at Krk would be raised to 6.1 billion cubic metres and that a pipeline would be built, with its first section running to Bosiljevo, a €150 million project.

He, too, stressed that households and the public sector would have sufficient quantities of gas at affordable prices.

Antonija Glavac of the PPD gas company said that due to the situation caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, this year Europe had imported 140 billion cubic metres of gas via the LNG terminal, double the quantity of 2021.

She said that Croatia had also become a safe gas transit country and that last year it consumed 2.5 billion cubic metres of gas.

She added that the price of gas had reached its highest level in August 2022, when a megawatt cost €307.7.

“We expect the prices to stabilise but not at previous levels,” she said, expressing hope that domestic gas production would increase by 10%.

Speaking of the prospect and challenges of increasing gas output in Croatia, Hrvoje Krpan of the INA company said that over the past 10 years gas output had dropped by 10% year on year, but that INA planned to invest maximum effort to reverse that trend. In this context he mentioned new projects, including the construction of 11 new rigs and nine gas platforms to increase daily output by 1.5 million cubic metres, as well as the Dravica-Zalata project in the Croatia-Hungary border area.