Italy's industry minister Claudio Scajola has won a commitment from Russia to return gas supplies to Italy back to their normal levels said Scajola's ministry after meeting his Russian counterpart, Forbes reports referring to AFX News.
Eni SpA's imports of gas from Russia have fallen short of their normal 74 mln cubic metres per day, though the shortfall is seen narrowing to 2.7 pct today, from 5.4 yesterday, and 8.1 the day before.
'The Russian side (in the talks) has committed itself to do everything possible, including asking Ukraine to respect its contractual arrangement, to bring supplies of natural gas to Italy back to normal conditions,' said the Italian industry ministry statement.
This commitment is in order that Italy can overcome the consequences of difficult and exceptional weather, which is affecting negatively the functioning of the Italy energy system, it said.
'This extraordinary commitment of the Russian government is linked to the framework of ever-more intense interaction between the governments of the two countries and their companies,' it said.
Eni and Gazprom have held talks to expand their existing long-term gas contracts to possibly include Eni's cooperation in Russian oil exploration.
The Italian ministry's statement said Scajola and Russian industry and energy minister Viktor Khristenko have discussed Russian gas projects, in which Italian companies can contribute.
A broker said reports cite Scajola saying he sees no obstacles to Gazprom distributing gas in Italy.
