After a short supply stop, Russia is again pumping gas through Austria to Italy. A solution to the problem had been found with the Italian customers, the Russian state-owned company Gazprom announced on Wednesday on the Telegram news channel. The Austrian operator agrees to accept so-called nominations for the transport, which will allow Russian gas supplies to be resumed.
The state-owned Italian group and largest gas importer Eni confirmed that deliveries resumed on Wednesday. The company announced that the restrictions imposed by Austrian standards had been removed. Further details were not known. Eni also did not communicate how much Russian gas was ordered and expected.
Before the war broke out, Italy had received around 40 percent of the gas it needed from Russia. In the weeks and months after the attack on Ukraine, Rome concluded agreements with a number of other suppliers – mainly from Algeria and the Middle East – so that according to government figures only around 25 percent of the gas imported came from Gazprom in the summer. The Russian share of imports has recently continued to shrink, according to the media in the past week it was only just under 10 percent.
Then, over the weekend, Gazprom completely halted gas supplies to Italy. The Russian energy giant stated that it was no longer able to transfer 20 million euros in security guarantees to the Austrian transporter due to new regulations. Eni checked that he could raise the money instead of Gazprom so that transit in Austria could be resumed. Italy receives Russian gas via a pipeline route that runs through Austria.
The Italian group saw “absolutely no geopolitical reasons” as the reason for the delivery stop. Rather, problems arose with payment details in rubles or euros.
