The Russian gas company Gazprom announced on Saturday that gas transit through Austria to Italy has been suspended. According to Gazprom, the reason for this is that the Austrian gas network operator refused to confirm the transport nominations. In a statement published on Telegram, Gazprom blamed regulatory changes in Austria for the problem and said it was working on a solution to the problem.
According to Gazprom, this happens together with Italian customers. The Italian supplier Eni had previously announced that Russian gas supplies to the Mediterranean country had been suspended for the time being. Russian gas normally arrives at and is distributed from the Italian-Austrian border town of Tarvisio in Italy. An Eni spokesman told the ANSA news agency that Gazprom had announced that it was no longer able to deliver to Austria. However, according to information from Eni, the Alpine republic continues to receive Russian gas, the spokesman continued.
Only 25 percent gas from Russia
By the time war broke out in Ukraine, Italy had received around 40 percent of its gas from Russia. Then the government in Rome and the semi-state corporation Eni concluded agreements with a number of other countries – such as Algeria – in order to minimize dependence on Moscow. In recent months, it has been said that Italy only gets around 25 percent of its gas from Russia. In the past few days, the delivery quantities had fallen sharply.