Italy has increased the purchase of Russian gas to three times

This year, Italy has increased the purchase of Russian gas three times, Gazprom said in a statement after a meeting between Alexey Miller, president of Eni Paolo Scaroni.

"Today in Amsterdam (the Netherlands) held a working meeting between the Chairman of the Board of JSC" Gazprom "Alexey Miller, General Manager of ENI, Paolo Scaroni. The parties discussed the current state and prospects of cooperation between the companies in the gas sector, "- said in a statement posted on the website of the Russian company.

In the release notes that during the meeting focused on issues of Russian natural gas to the Italian market. In particular, they noted a threefold increase Gazprom’s supplies to consumers in Italy this year.

Thus, a significant increase in deliveries to Italy was observed in April-May 2013. According to Gazprom, in I quarter 2013 shipments grew 1.5 times to 6.82 billion cubic meters, accounting for almost half of the total supply for the whole of last year.

In the last three months of Gazprom increases gas supplies to foreign countries due to adverse weather conditions and rising prices in the spot market. In 2012, Gazprom’s supplies to Italy amounted to 15.1 billion cubic meters of gas, and in 2011 — 17 billion cubic meters.

Recall Gazprom began negotiationswith the Italian company to adjust the price parameters of Russian gas supplies. Until recently, the only change to the contract concerned the decline in gas prices. But last fall, the president of Eni Paolo Scaroni announced its intention to abandon the basic principle in the contracts of Gazprom — the "take or pay".

He said the company does not want to renew expiring contracts with this condition and try to find a solution for those contracts, which still stands, because they have become too expensive — for amount of gas in 2009-2011, the company had to pay to suppliers about 1.5 billion euros.

In these negotiations, Eni just seeking cancellation of the "take or pay" in the contract, the newspaper reported earlier source "Vedomosti", close to the group "Gazprom". Companies could be forced to reduce the volume of purchases of Russian gas, due to the fact that the local gas market declines (in 2012, according to Snam Rete Gas, down 4%).

In addition, they resumed shipments from Libya, Gazprom spokesman said earlier. As a result, the supply of concern to Italy in 2012 fell 12% to 76.8 billion cubic meters, according to its accounting standards.