The Ignalina plant, which has two Chernobyl-type reactors and supplies about 80 percent of the energy consumed in the Baltic country, was shut down on Saturday for routine maintenance and will not operate for 36 days, officials at the plant said.

"Lithuania's needs in September are estimated at about 820 million kilowatt hours. Some 400 million kWh will be produced by Lithuanian power stations in Kaunas and Kruonis, about 260 million will be imported from Rusia, and another 160 million form Estonia," Aurelija Trakseliene, spokeswoman of the state-owned energy distribution company, Lietuvos Energija, told AFP.

The closure of the plant came as prices for petrol and fuel hit record highs in the Baltic state, but amid unseasonally warm temperatures.

The first of two reactors at Ignalina was halted on December 31 in line with a pledge made by Lithuania during European Union membership talks. The Baltic state joined the EU in May last year.

The deal with the EU provided that the nuclear facility be entirely closed in 2009.

But the Lithuanian government is considering building a new nuclear plant using Ignalina's infrastructure and has already ordered a feasibility study.

The Ignalina plant operated two RBMK reactors -- the same type as those used at Ukraine's Chernobyl nuclear plant, which exploded in 1986 in the world's worst civil nuclear disaster.

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