Italy has used 6% of its strategic gas reserves to compensate for cuts back in gas arriving from Russia, according to Sergio Garribba, the energy department chief at the Industry Ministry.
The amount, some 300 million cubic meters out of a total of 5.1 billion, was "not particularly high" and Italy "will have no problem making it through the winter," he added. Italy this winter has found itself in a gas crunch due to an unusually cold season and sharp reductions in gas arriving from Russia over the past two months.
Russian gas imports in January fell by an average of 3.7%, with a peak of 23.8% at the start of the month, mostly because of a political flap between Moscow and Kiev after Russia hiked up what it charges Ukraine for its gas.
Ukraine responded by siphoning off gas heading to Europe when its supplies were cut back.
Reductions in the gas flow later in the month were due to a long and severe cold snap in Russia and were in line with seasonal cutbacks to meet domestic needs. This situation extended into February and was aggravated by Ukraine allegedly again taking Russian gas from pipelines running through its territory to make up for its shortages.
Over the past ten days Italy has been forced to deal with daily cutbacks of between 10% and over 16%.
In order to deal with the gas crisis, the government has adopted a series of measures including authorizing the reopening of power plants which use polluting fuels and ordering buildings to lower their thermostats and reduce central heating hours.
Italy gets some 24 billion cubic meters of natural gas a year from Russia, 20 billion from Algeria and eight billion from Libya. Most of the rest it needs, 16 billion cubics meters, is piped from Norwegian and Dutch fields in the North Sea.
In a related development, Italy's anti-trust authority this week slapped the fuels giant ENI with whopping
290-million-euro fine for abusing its dominant position in the wholesale gas market.
The fine is the biggest of its kind in Italy and the second largest in Europe, after the 470 million euro one
against Microsoft in 2004. Italy's anti-trust authority fined ENI because of its delay in increasing the capacity of its pipeline with Algeria. The gas was to have gone to third party companies in line with Italy's competition rules.
Aside from the fine, ENI was ordered to expand the Algerian pipeline's annual transport capacity by 6.5 billion cubic meters a year, which it must then cede to third party companies by October 1, 2008.
Had ENI already expanded the pipeline's capacity, the additional 6.5 billion cubic meters from Algeria would have resolved Italy's e current crisis.
Speaking on Friday, Garribba said ENI knew for some time that Italy's demand for gas was on the rise but had not only delayed work on the Algerian pipe line but had also opposed the building of plants to transform frozen liquid gas imported by ship.
