Russia suspended gas shipment to Italy

Earlier today, Italian energy group Eni reported that gas supplies from Russia’s state-owned Gazprom had been temporarily suspended. The Italian company explained that the reason had to do with traffic problems in the pipeline that passes through Austria.” Gazprom informed us that it is unable to confirm the volumes of gas requested to date due to the declared impossibility of transporting the gas through Austria,” an Eni statement said. Therefore, today the flow of Russian gas destined for Eni through the Tarvisio crossing would be equal to zero,” the text added. Hours later, a spokesman for the Italian firm revealed that Austria was indeed receiving gas from Gazprom, so they were already working “to see if it is possible to reactivate the supply” in Italian territory. Until the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Italy received 40% of its gas from Russia. From that moment on, the government, like so many other European countries, sought alternatives to supply itself and signed agreements with other countries such as Algeria. Currently only 25% of the gas Italy receives is Russian. In the face of the boreal winter, European concern about energy supplies is increasing. On more than one occasion Putin made it clear that he will not hesitate to suspend the supply if an agreement is not reached with Western countries: “We will not deliver anything at all if it is contrary to our interests. No gas, no oil, no coal… nothing,” the Russian leader said in early September.

Original source in Spanish