MILAN,
Italy —
Italy’s foreign minister held talks in
Algeria Monday on increasing gas
supplies from the North African country to compensate for a possible drop in
Russian supplies over the Ukraine conflict.
اضافة اعلان
Luigi Di Maio tweeted as he arrived that he
would “discuss strengthening bilateral cooperation, in particular to address
European energy security needs, in the light of the conflict in
Ukraine”.
Russia last week invaded its pro-Western
neighbor, prompting international outrage and causing the US and its allies to
impose sanctions on Moscow.
“Our goal is to protect Italian companies and
families from the effects of this terrible war,” Di Maio told reporters,
without giving any detail on how much extra gas Algeria might provide.
Italy imports around 95 percent of the gas it
uses, and around 45 percent of that comes from Russia.
During his visit Di Maio met Algerian
President
Abdelmadjid Tebboune, the foreign and energy ministers and Toufik
Hakkar, the head of Algerian state energy giant Sonatrach.
Sonatrach said on Sunday it was ready to
increase gas supplies to Europe, notably via the Transmed pipeline linking
Algeria to Italy.
Sonatrach is “a reliable gas supplier for the
European market and is willing to support its long-term partners in the event
of difficult situations”, Hakkar was quoted as saying in the daily Liberte.
He added that Europe is the “natural market
of choice” for Algerian gas, which accounts for about 11 percent of Europe’s
gas imports.
Di Maio was accompanied by a delegation that
included
Claudio Descalzi, head of Italian energy giant Eni, which is a partner
of Sonatrach in Algeria.
Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi has
called for Italy to move quickly to diversify its sources of energy to reduce its
dependence on Russian gas.
Di Maio confirmed on Monday that
Italy was
“committed to increasing energy supplies, notably in gas, from various
international partners” — including Algeria, which he said had “always been a
reliable supplier”.
Draghi said that supplies could also be
increased from Azerbaijan,
Tunisia, and Libya.
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