Subsidiary of Estonian state-run Eesti Energia concern plans to gain 15% of Latvian energy market in two years

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A subsidiary of the Estonian state-run Eesti Energia concern called E.Energia gained 5% of electric energy sales in Latvia in October,the press office of the Estonian concern told REGNUM on December 15. They also noted that by the end of 2008 this share will grow up to 5%, and up to 15% in two years.

Clients of the daughter enterprise in Latvia are well-known companies Latvijas Balzams, Severstallat, Valmiera VSS and others.

E.Energy enterprise started its activity in Latvia in 2006, when Latvia opened its energy market in its commitment to the European Union. There is a possibility of the enterprise’s share expansion in the Latvian market by moving to the private sector of energy consumers in 3-5 years. The advances of the enterprise over Latvian competitors are considered to be, first, the ability to produce energy at its own power stations,  second, volumes of production and consumption, third, the developed client base in Estonia, and, finally, the readiness to offer long-term contracts to customers.

The turnover of E.Energy amounted to 16 millions kroons (1.03 millions euro) in October, with four people working in the firm.

As REGNUM informed earlier, subsidiaries of the Estonian state energy-monopolist concern, Eesti Energia, started their activities in Lithuania as well, where they had sold first kilowatts of electric energy. Contrary to Estonia, where energy market is still highly monopolized with only 10% belonging to companies excluding Eesti Energia, markets of Latvia and Lithuania are already opened after the EU claim from July 1, 2007. Since July 1, the cost of consuming energy for Estonian people has increased by 5% on average. In February, the chairman of the board of Eesti Energia, Sandor Liive, called to EU to introduce customs duties for Russian energy in order to deprive the Russian electric energy of its competitive advances. He announces that the strategic aim of Estonian energy sector is to form large and independent of Russia energy market including also Scandinavian countries, Lithuania and Poland.