OREANDA-NEWS. October 14, 2014. European Commission has decided not to fund Alexela Energia and Finnish energy company Gasum's joint projects for building liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals on the shores of the Gulf of Finland after a meeting.

Estonian Ministry of Economic Affairs says that they have always followed the principle that they will support the project that offers the fastest completion deadline and competitive gas prices.

Both companies have announced that they will push on with the project and look for alternative solutions, reports ERR's radio news.

"The representatives of the European Commission, Finnish Ministry and LNG project met in Tallinn and explored options to move forward on the basis of the February 2014 Memorandum of Understanding, which looked for ways to form a joint enterprise of Alexela and Gasum and the building of regional terminal," said Timo Tatar, head of Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications' Energy Department.

"It was admitted in the meeting that the negotiations for a co-operative enterprise have so far yielded no results and we will move on independently, having a large terminal either one or the other side," he said. A single LNG terminal is estimated to cost around 500 million euros.

Tatar says that the government has always followed the principle that it will support the project that offers the fastest completion deadline and competitive gas prices, and whose developers are not dependent on the supplier who currently controls the market. "In that sense we continue to support and hope that the regional terminal will be built and built sooner rather than later," he said.

When asked about a joint project of Elering and Tallinna Sadam which proposed the building of the LNG terminal at Muuga, he said that Elering has withdrawn its participation. "The developers of the Muuga project say that their focus today is to build a smaller terminal for ship bunkering, which could be financed through transport funds."