Italy claims to have achieved independence from Russian gas dependency.

Rome, April 16 – Italian Minister of the Environment and Energy Security Gilberto Becchetto Frattin said that Italy had reduced the share of gas supplies from the Russian Federation to 10%, bypassing dependence on Moscow with supplies from Africa and across the Adriatic Sea.

“If earlier 40% of gas demand came from Russia, today we get just over 10%. Thus, we have already overcome our dependence on Moscow by increasing pipeline gas imports from the east through the TAP (Tapline gas through the Adriatic from Azerbaijan) and from Africa thanks to new agreements with Algeria and Libya,” he said in an interview with Corriere della Sera.

In February, Adolfo Orso, Italy’s Minister for Enterprise and Industrialization, said that Rome would be able to stop buying Russian gas this year and become a supplier of natural fuels through new channels.

According to Piketto-Fratin, the guarantor of gas supplies will be its receipt of LNG from the terminals.

“Regasification devices will allow us to purchase gas at the best price in the world in anticipation of further development of obtaining energy from alternative sources and understanding when it will be possible to develop the fourth generation of nuclear energy,” the minister said.

Italy intends to commission two offshore regasification plants in Tuscany Piombino and Ravenna before the summer, which will produce 10 billion cubic meters of gas per year. Thus, it is planned to replenish the volume of gas imported by the country from Russia in 2022.

After the start of the Russian special operation in Ukraine, the Italian government set the task of liberation from dependence on natural gas imported from the Russian Federation as soon as possible. At the initiative of former Prime Minister Mario Draghi, concrete steps were taken to introduce new austerity measures and new agreements were concluded to diversify energy sources.

In the Russian Federation, it has been repeatedly said that the West made a huge mistake by refusing to buy hydrocarbons from Russia, and will fall into a new, even stronger dependence on rising prices. Moscow stated that those who refused would still buy more expensively through intermediaries and would buy Russian oil and gas.