OREANDA-NEWS. January 05, 2015. State-owned Elering has purchased a majority holding in AS Vorguteenus Valdus, which owns the nation's gas transmission network.

Elering purchased 51.38 percent of the shares of the company from Finnish Forum Heat and Gas OY. The rest will remain in the hands of Gazprompank (37 percent) and Itera Latvija (10 percent), as well as some smaller shareholders.

Both the Ministry of the Interior and the Competition Authority approved the sale. The Ministry of Economy, which oversees Elering, has stated ambition to become the sole owner of the network.

The reason lies in EU directives, which have been adopted by Estonia and which say the seller of gas and the network operator can not belong to the same company. Eesti Gaas is the seller of gas in Estonia, and is owned by Fortum Heat and Gas OY (51 percent) and Gazprom (37 percent).

The network itself is 885 kilometers long, with three gas measuring stations and 37 distribution stations with the capacity of 14 million cubic meters per day.