Eni: Italy to survive winter without Russian gas

CEO of Italy's Eni energy company Claudio Descalzi has said that Italy should have at least 70-80 per cent of its gas reserves by October 2022 to cope with peak loads in winter, which can reach 400 million cubic metres per day.

“Thus, Italy could prepare for winter if Russia ceases gas supplies,” TASS quotes Descalzi as saying.

 “Presently, we lack about 30 million cubic metres of Russian gas per day, but Italy can now offer about 200 million cubic metres of gas. At the moment, supply exceeds demand, namely, supply is 200 million cubic metres of gas, while demand is 150-160 million cubic metres,” he said, according to the Adnkronos news service.

Eni's CEO noted that it is important to keep gas at the storage facilities, which are currently full at 54 per cent.

He added that Italy could "survive the winter" even if gas supplies from Russia were completely cut off.

“If Russia cut [supplies] now, we wouldn’t be ready. We would have prepared by autumn-winter [season] of 2022-2023,” Eni's CEO added.

 “We should finalise all agreements that we have concluded over the past 4-5 months. We will have to additionally obtain gas from other countries. Perhaps, there will be a state of high alert and some restrictions will be made, but in any case, we have diversification [options] which will help us survive winter,” Descalzi noted.

Gas supplies to Italy

Earlier, Italy’s ANSA news agency reported that the Italian authorities are considering the possibility of declaring an "alarm" in connection with a decrease in Russian gas supplies.

According to ANSA, the Italian Ministry of Ecological Transition may increase the current warning level to the level of danger in the field of energy supply next week if Russia continues to cut gas supplies.

Russia’s Gazprom company notified Eni about the reduction of gas supplies by about 15 per cent on June 15 while on June 16 the Italian company received no more than 65 per cent of the requested gas volume.

Eni was notified by Gazprom on June 17 that it would supply 50 per cent of its requested volume, but noted that actual supplies were almost unchanged compared to the previous day.

Eni announced on June 18 that it would receive gas from Gazprom that corresponds to the recent supplies. The Italian company reported that Gazprom explained the insufficient volume by “problems associated with the Portovaya station”.

Gazprom announced on June 14 that it had been forced to reduce gas supplies via the Nord Stream pipeline because Siemens did not repair gas pumping units on time and there were technical engine malfunctions.

In this regard, only three gas pumping units can be used for pumping at the Portovaya compressor station for the supply of only 100 million cubic metres per day compared to the planned volume of 167 million cubic metres per day.