Italy PM: U.S. ready to ship more gas to Italy, price to be discussed

ROME, Nov 16 (Reuters) – The United States is ready to boost supplies of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Italy, but it is still unclear at what price, Italy’s new Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said on Wednesday.

Like its European peers, Italy is scrambling to diversify its energy supplies to cut dependence on Russia after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. Rome has already struck several energy deals with African countries.

The U.S. “guarantee their readiness to increase gas supplies (to Italy), obviously the question of price remains open,” Meloni said at the G20 summit in Bali, where she had a bilateral meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden.

Meloni said she understood from the talks with Biden that his administration “is ready to discuss with the European Union ways to reduce (gas) prices,” knowing however that the suppliers of LNG are private companies.

Italy believes it does not make much difference if the missile that caused a deadly explosion in Poland was not Russian, because Moscow is still to blame for attacking infrastructure in Ukraine, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni added.

Talking to reporters at the G20 summit in Bali, Meloni said she spoke to Polish Prime Minister Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki.

“The possibility that the missile falling on Poland was not a Russian missile but a Ukrainian one changes very little,” she said.