Italy to prepare 'exceptional' measures given Russian gas supply risk

Italy has issued an early gas market warning notice given the high level of risk to Russian gas supplies via Ukraine, saying it was preparing "exceptional" measures to incentivize storage injections.

Italy already has a regulated storage market requiring users to keep a minimum stock level in the country.

However, given its relative dependence on Russian imports, the ministry warned that new measures would be needed given the risk of supply disruption as the conflict in Ukraine continues.

Italy bought 21 Bcm of gas from state-controlled Gazprom in 2020 -- meeting around one third of the country's total demand -- with the route for Russian gas supplies to Italy passing through Ukraine, Slovakia and Austria on the TAG pipeline.

"The level of danger of the threat to supplies is significantly higher than that envisaged in the risk analyses carried out in the past from which the current preventive and emergency action plans derive," Italy's Ministry of Ecological Transition said in a statement Feb. 26.

The ministry said it deemed it appropriate to prepare "exceptional preventive measures aimed at incentivizing the filling of the storage in advance with respect to the procedures adopted under normal conditions."

It also said it wanted to make the users of the national gas system aware of the situation of uncertainty linked to the conflict in Ukraine, adding, however, that the supply situation was currently "adequate" to cover domestic demand.

Italy currently has 76.3 TWh (7.2 Bcm) of gas in storage, according to data from Gas Infrastructure Europe.

Storage sites are around 39% full, the GIE data showed, compared with EU-level stocks being just 30% full.

As well as imports from Russia, Italy is also supplied with pipeline gas from Algeria, Libya and Azerbaijan, as well as having access to gas imports from Northwest Europe at the Passo Gries interconnection point.

It also has three LNG terminals giving it access to global LNG markets -- two on its northwestern coast and one on its northeastern coast.

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