MILAN (Reuters) -Italian energy group Eni said it will receive about a third less gas from Russia’s Gazprom on Monday compared to the average volumes supplied over the last few days.
The Nord Stream 1 pipeline which transports gas from Russia to Germany has entered a planned maintenance shutdown, prompting concerns about gas supplies to Europe if the outage is extended.
Gazprom will supply approximately 21 million cubic meters on Monday while in the last few days Eni had received a daily volume of about 32 million cubic meters, Eni said in a note on its website. It gave no reason for the shortfall.
Italy is trying to wean itself off its reliance on Russian gas following the invasion of Ukraine in February and build up reserves in time for winter.
“We must absolutely reach storage levels of 90% in the final months of the year,” ecological transition minister Roberto Cingolani told a conference on Monday.
“Over the next two years there will be a growing number of new suppliers that will allow us to be reasonably independent of Russian suppliers by the second half of 2024 but winter 2022 will be a little more delicate,” he added.
Italy currently has filled abut 64% of its gas storage capacity, Stefano Venier, head of gas grid operator Snam told the same conference.
The government currently sees no need to implement its emergency gas plan as the country strives to cope with the fall in Russian supplies and surging energy costs, a source close to the matter said.
Italy’s existing gas emergency protocol envisages three stages going from a state of pre-alert, imposed at the end of February after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, before moving to one of alert and then to a state of emergency.
(Reporting by Federico Maccioni and Giuseppe FonteWriting by Keith WeirEditing by Giulia Segreti and Susan Fenton)
