Lithuania's Finance Minister Janulevicius warns of bankruptcy

He told the public broadcaster LRT on Wednesday that no business wants to increase its losses because sooner or later it will end up in bankruptcy. A temporary suspension, looking into the situation, and investing in new resources is a more logical solution than working and eventually going bust. There are more businesses that may follow as prices for energy resources continue to rise, according to Janulevicius.

Achema has been halted from September to December due to high gas prices making its fertilizer products uncompetitive.

The company plans to lay off 5 percent of its workforce, with the rest going to be furloughed.

Janulevicius said that there must be efforts to prevent sudden price hikes on the electricity market, such as the one in mid-August when businesses spent as much electricity in two hours as they would normally do in two days.

The wholesale electricity price in the Lithuanian bidding area of the Nord Pool power exchange hit a new record high of 4,000 euros per megawatt-hour MWh in the evening of August 17.