Industry Minister Claudio Scajola on Wednesday called a special meeting with Italy's leading energy utilities after Russia reduced natural gas exports to meet domestic demand.
Representatives from ENI, ENEL and Edison will meet with the minister on Thursday.
A statement from the Industry Ministry explained that was necessary "to review the current situation and the efficiency of measures which have already been decided and those which need to be adopted".
ENI reported on Wednesday that the previous day there had been a 5.4% drop in gas supplies from Russia which resulted in a 1% decline in supplies to Italy. Russia's Gazprom, which supplies a quarter Europe's gas, announced on Wednesday that it was cutting back on exports to parts of western Europe because of domestic demand created by a severe cold snap.
Italy's Snam Rete Gas company reported on Wednesday that on Monday the amount of gas it transports hit a peak of 440 million cubic meters, 55% of which was supplied by imports, 7% by domestic sources and the remaining 37% drawn from reserves, said to be in the neighborhood of some six billion cubic meters.
Speaking on Wednesday, Scajola said that at the moment Italy could count on strong gas reserves but that action needed to be taken to guarantee Italy's energy for the future. Scajola added that Italy needs to reduce its dependency on imported fuels and energy and he renewed his call to review Italy's moratorium on nuclear power.
He also suggested expanding infrastructures to allow Italy to diversify its sources for gas. The current problem, Scajola explained, "is that it is particularly cold in Europe and the whole continent is consuming more gas".
This is the second time in less than a month that natural gas supplies from Russia have been reduced.
On January 1, Russia cut its neighbour Ukraine's gas supplies after Kiev refused Moscow's demand for a fourfold price rise.
This led to a reduction in gas reaching western Europe with Moscow accusing the Ukraine of siphoning off gas from the pipelines which run through that country to supply Europe. The situation continued for three days before the two countries resolved their spat. Italy is heavily reliant on foreign gas although it has some deposits of its own.
It has significant alternatives to Russia in two north African countries, Algeria and Libya. Italy gets some 20 billion cubic meters a year from Algeria and eight billion from Libya - more combined than Russia's 24 billion.
Most of the rest, 16 billion cubics metres, is piped from Norwegian and Dutch fields in the North Sea. At the height of winter Italy consumes about 380 million cubic metres of gas every weekday and about 500 million at the weekend.
Italy has been getting gas from Russian giant Gazprom since an historic deal in 1969.
