Europe can easily replace gas coming via Ukraine with LNG, Snam CEO says
MILAN, Nov 7 (Reuters) - When a transit deal expires at the end of the year, Europe can easily replace Russian gas flowing through Ukraine with liquefied natural gas (LNG), the CEO of Europe's biggest gas grid operator Snam SRG.MI said on Thursday.
Russia shipped about 15 billion cubic metres (bcm) of gas via Ukraine in 2023 - only about 8% of peak Russian gas flows to Europe via various routes in 2018-2019 - supplying mainly Hungary, Slovakia and Austria.
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Ukraine has refused to renew the transit deal with Russia due to the ongoing military invasion. With the deal coming to an end this year, some concerns have arisen over energy security risks for these countries.
"Europe has plenty of LNG facilities to offset this 15 bcm of Russian gas," Snam's Stefano Venier said, speaking at a post-result conference call.
Venier mentioned an LNG terminal that started operations in Greece's northeastern port of Alexandroupolis in October, and a floating terminal that Snam will place offshore the Italian city of Ravenna early next year.
The group has also finished works to boost its gas export capacity towards Austria to 9 bcm from a previous 6 bcm.
Snam on Thursday reported a 12% rise in nine-month core earnings to 2.09 billion euros.
Speaking with Reuters after the results, Snam's Chief Financial Officer Luca Passa confirmed the group was in negotiations with Eni over the energy group's carbon capture and storage (CCS) division.
"We are doing due diligence on the new Eni CCS unit spinoff to become a partner and eventually round up our stake... this would allow us to diversify our presence in this area of business," Passa said.
Snam has completed the funding for this year and could start to do pre-funding activities for 2025 with future moves depending on the reaction of the financial markets to the U.S. elections, Passa said.
(Reporting by Francesca LandiniEditing by Ros Russell)