MILAN (Reuters) – Italy’s foreign minister is visiting Algeria with the head of energy group Eni to discuss energy cooperation in light of the Ukraine crisis, the ministry said on Monday.
The move comes as Western governments step up efforts to tap alternative gas supplies to reduce their reliance on Russia after its invasion of Ukraine.
The foreign office said minister Luigi Di Maio was travelling to Algeria with Eni Chief Executive Claudio Descalzi and a representative of the energy transition ministry.
Eni has a series of long-term gas contracts with Algerian gas monopolist Sonatrach and is one of the country’s biggest foreign energy producers.
It also has strategic take-or-pay gas contracts with Russia’s Gazprom.
Italy, which generates around 40% of its electricity from gas, imports more than 90% of overall gas consumption with most of that coming from Russia and Algeria.
Rome, which has introduced measures to boost domestic gas production and storage, is looking to diversify its gas supplies to reduce its dependency on Russia.
But with global gas supplies tight and LNG producers already churning out as much as they can, there is little availability to make up for the large volumes from Russia.
Algeria, which has pipelines to Spain and Italy and a large LNG terminal at Skikda, boosted oil and gas output last year by 5% though rising domestic consumption and political instability have capped exports.
But on Sunday the CEO of Sonatrach said the pipeline to Italy had spare capacity that could be used to increase supply to Europe.
The European Union depends on Russia for more than a third of its gas, and any interruption of flows would worsen an energy crisis that has already sent consumer bills sky high.
(Reporting by Stephen Jewkes; Editing by Keith Weir)
