ROME: Italy is looking at alternative sources of natural gas, including US liquefied natural gas (LNG) and pipeline supplies from Africa and Azerbaijan, to make up for loss of deliveries from Qatar due to the conflict in the Middle East, Energy Minister Gilberto Pichetto Fratin told a ⁠newspaper on Friday.
⁠QatarEnergy declared force majeure this week and informed Italian utility Edison on Thursday that it would not be able to fulfil its ⁠contractual obligations concerning five liquefied natural gas (LNG) cargo deliveries scheduled to arrive in early April.
Rome is not alarmed about securing replacement volumes, since Qatar supplies only about 9 percent of Italy’s annual gas consumption, Pichetto Fratin told Il Messaggero pointing to several ⁠options, ⁠such as US LNG, “if it is available.”
Pipeline gas from Libya is another option, although “technical conditions must be created,” he said.
Additional flows could come from Mozambique or Algeria, and from Azerbaijan through the TAP pipeline, Pichetto Fratin added.