ROME (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 16th April, 2023) Italy has reduced the share of its gas supplies from Russia to 10 percent, overcoming its dependence on Moscow with imports from Africa and across the Adriatic Sea, Italian Energy Minister Gilberto Pichetto Fratin said on Sunday.
"While Russia used to account for 40 percent of our gas needs, today we import a little over 10 percent. So we have actually overcome our dependence on Moscow by increasing gas imports from the East via the TAP (Trans Adriatic Pipeline) and from Africa thanks to new agreements with Algeria and Libya," the minister told Italian daily Corriere della Sera.
In February, Italian Industry Minister Adolfo Urso said that Rome would be able to forego buying Russian gas and become a supplier of natural fuel through new channels in 2023.
According to the energy minister, the guarantee of gas supply will be to receive it from LNG terminals.
"Regasifiers will allow us to buy gas at a better price around the world, pending further development of alternative energy generation and understanding when the fourth-generation of nuclear power can be developed," the minister said.
By the summer, Italy plans to commission two offshore regasification terminals in the provinces of Piombino and Ravenna that will produce 10 billion cubic meters of gas per year. This will compensate for the volume of gas that the country imported from Russia in 2022.
After the start of the Russian special operation in Ukraine, the Italian government set the goal of becoming independent of natural gas imported from Russia in the shortest possible time. On the initiative of former Prime Minister Mario Draghi, concrete steps were taken to introduce new austerity measures and new agreements were made to diversify energy sources.
