Istat, in February paid two billion to Russia for gas and oil. Exports are doing well but the trade deficit is increasing

Last February, Italy paid Russia two billion euros for oil and gas imports. In general, the energy deficit in the Italian trade balance tripled in one year due to the price increases of all fuels. Istat estimates a liabilities of 7.2 billion in February 2022, compared to 2.2 billion in the same month of 2021. Overall, Italy thus passes, in twelve months, from an overall trade surplus of 4.7 billion to a deficit of 1.6 billion. As Istat explains “Purchases of natural gas they contribute by 10 percentage points to the strong trend increase in Italian imports ”, which mark + 44.9%. The invasion of Ukraine began on the 24th for the same month, the figure therefore incorporates only minimally the impact of the conflict and the jump in commodity prices.

Moreover, supply contracts are not immediately linked to price fluctuations on the market. Russian gas is cheap, 10-20 euros per megawatt / hour, about one fifth of the current prices on the Amsterdam market, the reference for European exchanges. Every day we import approx 80 million cubic meters of Russian gas for a total of about 30 billion of which meters per year. It must be said that in recent weeks i flows from Tarvisio, where Russian gas enters Italy, have significantly decreased, halved and in some days almost zeroed in others. Compensated above all by the arrival of ships carrying liquid gas landed at the Livorno, Cavarzere and Panigaglia regasification plants. This gas costs significantly more than that which arrives from the USA at least 50% more. It is therefore probable, to put in place the meteorological components, that our energy costs rose significantly in March and, above all, they will rise in April. The data arrived today from Germania on producer prices in March do not bode well, gas recorded an increase of 145% compared to the previous year, while the energy item recorded an overall + 45%.

Comfort data on overall Italian exports which in February was higher than a year earlier 22.7%, an increase of 1.6% compared to the previous month. On an annual basis, both sales to the EU area (+ 24%) and to non-EU markets (+ 21.1%) increased. Coldiretti reports that the month marked a historic record for food exports with an increase of 21.6% a 52 billion euros.

–