Italian energy major Eni, the largest importer of Russian gas in Italy, is in talks with Gazprom and plans to discuss options to restore supply to Italy, which was halted this weekend, a spokesperson for the Italian group told Reuters on Monday.
This weekend, the Italian major said it had not received any of the natural gas contracted for delivery with Russia's Gazprom for either Saturday or Sunday and warned this could extend to Monday as well.
Gazprom has told Eni that "it's not possible to supply gas through Austria. Therefore, today's Russian gas supplies to Eni through the Tarvisio entry point will be at zero," the Italian group said on Saturday.
Russia's gas giant Gazprom, for its part, said that the "transportation of Russian gas through Austria under the contracts of Gazprom Export LLC has been suspended due to the refusal of the Austrian operator to confirm the transport nominations."
"The reason is related to the regulatory changes that took place in Austria at the end of September," Gazprom said on Saturday, adding it "is working on solving the problem jointly with Italian buyers."
On Monday, an Eni spokesman told Reuters, commenting on the issue:
"Eni intends to evaluate with the Austrian operator and Gazprom some options to unblock supplies, but it is premature to provide details before the parties have agreed on the actual feasibility.
Italy and Austria receive natural gas from Russia via the Yamal-Europe pipeline that passes through Ukraine and then via the Trans Austria Gas Pipeline.
According to Bloomberg, sources with knowledge of the matter claimed that Italy had already sourced enough gas from North African gas producers Algeria and Egypt to replace Russian gas even if Russia stops sending any gas to Italy. Italy has plans to be completely free of its reliance on Russian gas by 2025.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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Tsvetana is a writer for Oilprice.com with over a decade of experience writing for news outlets such as iNVEZZ and SeeNews. More