(ANSA) - Gas supplies to Italy are under control despite the knock-on effects of a gas row between Russia and Ukraine, an Italian minister said on Monday.
Industry Minister Claudio Scajola said imports were "regular" and there was "no medium-term risk" of supplies dropping.
The minister was speaking shortly after Russia promised to get supplies back to full stream within 24 hours.
Moscow told the Austrian duty presidency of the European Union it would make up a drop in supply which it blamed on Kiev siphoning off gas meant for western Europe. Ukraine has denied these allegations.
Scajola stressed there were no looming shortfalls despite the supply from Russia falling by about a quarter on Monday. Similar cuts were reported in France and central Europe. Scajola was speaking after talks with the heads of fuels group Eni and electricity group Enel.
Despite the reassuring news from Moscow, Scajola brought forward by a week, to Tuesday morning, a meeting of the government's emergency committee on Italy's natural-gas system. Eni CEO Paolo Scaroni said the emergency, however brief, could bite into Italy's strategic reserves of six billion cubic metres.
Enel meanwhile stressed that its power stations would continue running at full capacity.
Some 60% of Italian electricity is produced using natural gas. Ensuring the security of future gas supplies will be the focus of Tuesday's meeting. The EU has a similar meeting scheduled for Wednesday. Italian firms have already been told to start stocking up on gas.
taly is heavily reliant on foreign gas although it has some deposits of its own. But it has significant alternatives to Russia in two north African countries, Algeria and Libya. Italy gets some 20 billion cubic metres a year from Algeria and eight Billion from Libya - more combined than Russia's 24 billion.
Most of the rest, 16 billion cubics metres, is piped from Norwegian and Dutch fields in the North Sea. At the height of winter Italy consumes about 380 million cubic metres of gas every weekday and about 500 million at the weekend.
Italy has been getting gas from Russian giant Gazprom since an historic deal in 1969.
Russia cut its neighbour Ukraine's supplies on Sunday after Kiev refused Moscow's demand for a fourfold price rise.
