Does Austria care about the gas destined for Italy? It seems so
The Italian Eni said this weekend that it had not received the natural gas required by the contract with the Russian Gazprom for either Saturday or Sunday and warned that the situation could extend to Monday. But the responsibility seems to be Austrian.
The two companies told the media that they were working to solve the problem, which Gazprom says has to do with regulatory updates in Austria. The Russian state giant said on Saturday that the Austrian grid operator had refused to confirm the transit appointments, prompting Gazprom to suspend the flow of gas through the country, Reuters reported.
"Gazprom has informed us that it is unable to confirm the delivery of the volumes requested for today, citing the impossibility of transporting the gas through Austria," Eni said in a statement, cited by the AFP.
The Austrian side, for its part, said that Gazprom has not signed the necessary contracts to continue transporting the gas through Austria. "At the beginning of each gas year, various technical changes in the market model come into effect," the Austrian energy ministry said in a statement on Sunday, as reported by Reuters.
“This is why contractual changes are necessary. These contracts have not yet been signed by Gazprom. Transport appointments for today cannot therefore be accepted. We are currently working on a solution at a technical level at full speed ”.
The problem for Eni is that Russian gas enters Austria well but does not go out in the direction of Italy, according to a company spokesperson. A spokesperson for the Austrian energy major OMV confirmed that deliveries are stable. So the gas stops in Austria, and it is cheap gas, at the prices of old agreements ago Gazprom and ENI.
“Nominated volumes for today's gas day were significantly higher for OMV today than in recent times,” the spokesperson said, as quoted by Reuters. Then the Austrian OMV takes possession of the gas destined to Italy. Austria had one of the lowest reserve levels in Europe and apparently decided to replenish them to our detriment.
Italy and Austria receive natural gas from Russia through the Yamal-Europe pipeline which passes through Ukraine and then through the Trans Austria pipeline.
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The article Does Austria scrub the gas destined for Italy? It seems to come from ScenariEconomici.it .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/laustria-si-frega-il-gas-destinato-allitalia-pare-di-si/ on Mon, 03 Oct 2022 10:30:58 +0000.