Finland’s gas grid operator Gasgrid has quickly secured a 100-gigawatt-hours liquefied natural gas cargo as the Nordic state faces extremely cold weather amid supply-shortage worries.

Gasgrid Finland said on Friday that the 100 GWh cargo is expected to arrive at Inkoo LNG terminal before the following commercial cargo is scheduled. The fast-tracked cargo with the additional supply of LNG is expected to be delivered by 11 January.

Finland’s Inkoo regasification facility in southern Finland is seen as crucial infrastructure needed to secure alternative gas supplies for the region. Russian pipeline gas volumes to Finland were halted after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, and damage in October 2023 to the subsea segment of the Balticconnector natural gas pipeline linking Finland and Estonia added to Finland’s supply concerns.

The Finnish transmission system operator noted the additional supply is crucial to balance the system and mitigate the risk of a supply shortage.

Finland has no underground gas storage or domestic gas production.

Adding to the strain on Finland, Swedish utility Vattenfall has partially disconnected the 1.1-gigawatt unit 2 at the Forsmark nuclear power plant in Sweden due to turbine issues, it said on Wednesday. That has reduced its capacity by around 630 megawatts until 24 January. The plant supplies power to Finland as well.

There have been remarkable market imbalances in the past few days,” said Finland’s state-owned operator. “However, the market status has remained stable.”

The Balticconnector pipeline that links Finland and Estonia was taken out of service in October after it was pulled by a loose anchor, causing a sudden pressure drop in the line. The damaged pipeline is set to be repaired by April 2024, said the operator in an earlier statement.

Meanwhile, Finland’s smaller LNG terminal at the Hamina port is facing an increase in ice-class restrictions.

A Gasgrid spokesperson told Upstream that Finnish authorities are changing the current low-level restrictions to the highest level in the Hamina LNG import terminal from 7 January, limiting access to LNG vessels that don’t meet a minimum ice-class requirement.

The director responsible for procurement and trading at Finnish state-owned energy firm Gasum Jouni Liimatta previously warned about the short supply of winter-fit LNG carriers.

“If the Russian fleet is left out of the calculations, there are only about 10 such ice-strengthened LNG ships in the world. Not all of them are necessarily available,” he said.