VILNIUS: Lithuania’s Prime Minister announced on Friday that the country will declare a national “emergency situation” over the influx of smuggler’s balloons launched from Belarus.
“We are currently preparing the legal basis and documents,” Prime Minister Inga Ruginiene told reporters, calling the emergency declaration “the best course of action at this time.”
The ‘emergency situation’ enables the government and local authorities to dedicate extra resources to combatting the balloons.
“We do not rule out going further,” Ruginiene added. Declaring a state of emergency is a possible stronger step.
As a result of balloon incursions, Lithuania’s two largest airports, in Vilnius and Kaunas, have on several occasions been forced to halt operations.
Lithuanian officials claim that the balloons, which fly up to 10 kilometers (six miles) high, are deliberately being launched into the airport’s flight paths, and constitute an attack on its civil aviation.
Though the balloons, which contain cigarettes, have long been used by smugglers, they have only in the last few months prompted airport closures.
The Baltic state, a member of NATO and the European Union, has long accused Belarus, a close ally of Putin’s Russia, of organizing “hybrid warfare.”
The activity, which amplified in October, caused Lithuania to close its two border crossings with Belarus at the end of the month.
Belarus then prevented Lithuanian trucks from driving on its roads and barred them from leaving the country without first paying a fee, which Vilnius decried as “being held hostage” by Belarus.
Thousands of Lithuanian lorries remain stuck in Belarus, with Minsk calling for consultations with the Lithuanian foreign ministry.
Lithuania has instead called for harsher sanctions on Belarus.
Lithuania to declare ‘emergency situation’ over Belarus balloons: PM
https://arab.news/gkfhs
Lithuania to declare ‘emergency situation’ over Belarus balloons: PM
- “We are currently preparing the legal basis and documents,” Ruginiene told reporters
- “We do not rule out going further,” Ruginiene added. Declaring a state of emergency is a possible stronger step
Philippines discovers new gas deposit to boost depleted reserves
- Source near Malampaya field believed to contain 2.8 billion cubic meters of gas
- It will not take much time to access the gas, expert says, as infrastructure is ready
MANILA: The Philippines on Monday announced a new natural gas discovery, with the reservoir near the country’s largest offshore site estimated to be enough to power about 5.7 million households per year.
About 2.8 billion cubic meters (98 billion cubic feet) of gas were found 5km east of the Malampaya field near the island of Palawan, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said in a Facebook video.
“This is equivalent to nearly 14 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity per year. That means it could supply power to more than 5.7 million households, 9,500 buildings, or nearly 200,000 schools,” Marcos said.
“This helps Malampaya’s contribution and strengthens our domestic gas supply for many years to come. Initial testing showed that the well flowed at 60 million cubic feet (1.7 million cubic meters) per day.”
Malampaya, discovered in 1989 and operational since 2001, is the Philippines’ most important natural gas field, located off the west coast of Palawan Island. It is also a key part of the country’s energy infrastructure.
It supplies natural gas for electricity generation in Luzon, the main island of the Philippines, powering several major plants.
Prime Energy Resources Development, which manages the Malampaya project, said in a statement that the new reservoir, Malampaya East-1, was discovered by a “a fully Filipino-led team, reflecting the country’s growing capability in upstream energy development.”
Prime Energy’s well data indicate that Malampaya East-1 volumes are equivalent to about one-third of the remaining producible gas volumes at the original Malampaya.
Against the backdrop of Malampaya’s decline, it will help to secure the country’s gas supplies. It will also keep operational the expensive infrastructure that was installed to operate the legacy field.
“The original Malampaya was like 2.3 trillion cubic feet, so it’s like 4 percent of the original find. I still think that is significant in light of the decline of the Malampaya gas field,” said Alberto Dalusung III, energy transition adviser at the Institute for Climate and Sustainable Cities.
The new gas discovery benefits from ready access to processing facilities such as the 504 km undersea pipeline that was built for Malampaya, which will make it available sooner.
Dalusung estimated it would take up to two years for Filipino consumers to benefit from the new resources.
“The infrastructure is already there,” he said. “You don’t have to build the pipeline. All you have to do is find new gas resources, which we did.”
