Italy's cabinet Jan 24 approved a decree calling for consumers to
reduce natural gas consumption to help alleviate potential shortages
after Russia cut exports due to extreme cold, industry minister
Claudio Scajola said.
"We'll ask that heating is turned down by one degree and reduce
the duration of heating by one hour each day," Scajola told a press
conference. "This will reduce the need to resort to using our
strategic gas stocks."
Scajola said hospitals and schools would be exempt from the
decree, which also will seek to reopen power stations capable of
running on lower-sulfur fuel oil.
The decree will allow Italy's two largest power producers, Enel
and Edison, to switch feedstock from gas to oil for power generation
for a maximum of 5GW. The power stations of Sermide, Ostiglia,
Montalto, Porto Tolle and Rossano Calabro will make the switch in an
incremental manner, with a duration until the end of March, Scajola
said.
The measures are designed to save 25- to 35-mil cu m/d of gas,
Scajola said. Italy is drawing between 100- and 140-mil cu m/d from
stocks, he said, meaning inventories could run out by as early as
mid-February. Italy has a further 5-bil cu m of strategic reserves,
which Scajola said he is unwilling to touch.
Italian energy group Eni said earlier that Russian gas imports
into Italy would likely fall 6-mil cu m, or 8.1%, short of the
74-mil cu m requested for the day. The shortfall would be equivalent
to 1.4% of national daily demand, the company said. On Jan 23, Eni
said the shortfall of Russian gas imports was 4-mil cu m or 5.4%,
equal to 1% of total Italian demand.
Italy has seen gas shortfalls for a week, since Russia reduced
European supplies to help it cope with extreme cold weather at home.
Eni said its Russian gas volumes were down by 5.4% Jan 17, 6.8% Jan
18, 12.2% Jan 19, 4.1% Jan 20, 6.8% Jan 21 and 4.1% Jan 22. It said
existing stocks had been used to compensate for the shortfall.
In an interview with Italian daily La Repubblica Jan 23, Eni
chief executive Paolo Scaroni called for new regasification plants
to be built as quickly as possible and for the capacity of gas
pipelines from Algeria and Russia to be increased and for new
networks to be built. Also important, he said, was to build up
reserves. Italy imports 80% of its gas consumption from Russia,
Algeria and northern Europe.
Much of eastern Europe, meanwhile, has seen gas use soar amid
freezing temperatures at the same time as gas flows from Russia have
been reduced. Extremely cold temperatures in Russia led Gazprom to
reduce gas shipments to Hungary and Bosnia-Herzegovina Jan 17,
Gazprom warning at the time that the supply cuts could spread across
Europe.
AFP reported Jan 24 that Ukraine's government had ordered a cut
in gas consumption, while Romania and Poland had reported drops in
Russian gas supplies. Belarus also has seen a big drop in Russian
supply: volumes to the country's power grid Belenerha have been
reduced by more than 30%, according to Uladzimir Karduba, an aide to
the company's director-general, as monitored by the BBC. The
Belarusian news agency Belapan said gas deliveries had fallen by
13-mil cu m/d from around 43-mil cu m.
On Jan 23, Gazprom blamed Ukraine for using more Russian gas than
had been agreed, effectively reducing deliveries to Europe. Ukraine
rebutted the charge, according to a report by Russian news agency
Interfax, with prime minister Yuri Yekhanurov saying Ukraine had met
its obligations on transit of Russian gas to Europe, although he
acknowledged the country had raised gas consumption significantly
Jan 22.
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