Greece looks to neighbor Italy for gas storage

6/27/2022

(Reuters) - Greece has been in talks with Italy to see whether it can store gas in the neighboring country as part of efforts to secure supplies if Russian flows are disrupted, Greece's energy regulator said on Monday.

European Union countries and lawmakers last month clinched a deal on a law to fill gas stores ahead of winter as part of their efforts to build a supply buffer.

Greece has no gas storage facilities and it would need to store enough gas in other states to cover 15% of its annual use, which came in at about 7 billion cubic metres last year.

"We have been examining what quantity can be stored and what can be useable technically," the head of Greece's energy regulator Athanasios Dagoumas told reporters.

Athens was close to finalising its proposal before presenting it to the European Commission, Dagoumas said.

Greece has said it will ramp up purchases of liquefied natural gas (LNG), use spare coal-fired generation capacity and switch four gas-fired power plants to diesel in case Russia cuts supplies.

Greece has currently one facility off Athens which can store 225,000 cubic metres of LNG and regasify it.

Its gas operator DESFA will lease a floating storage unit which is expected to anchor close to the LNG facility next month to boost its storage capacity by 130,000 cubic metres, a DESFA official told Reuters.

Under a bill submitted to parliament by the government, DESFA will lease the unit for up to 12 months with an option to extend it by six months.

(Reporting by Angeliki Koutantou Editing by Mark Potter)