The stop through the Tarvisio entry point "has absolutely nothing to do with geopolitical factors. It is due to the fact that Gazprom would have to pay a monetary guarantee for the transport of gas from Austria to Italy that was not there before", Claudio Descalzi said.
The guarantee amounts to 20 million euros ($19.6 million), Descalzi said, noting that the daily gas flows through the entry point totaled 20 million metric cubes, equal to 10% of all imports to Italy.
Eni, the biggest importer of Russian gas in Italy, had flagged that Russian gas supplies normally coming via Austria would be at zero for the weekend as well as for Monday, with Gazprom blaming the disruption on regulatory changes in Austria.
Earlier on Monday, the Italian energy group said it was in talks with both Gazprom and Austria's Gas Connect Austria (GCA) to explore potential options to unblock gas supplies, a spokesman said.
($1 = 1.0226 euros)
(Reporting by Giselda Vagnoni, writing by Cristina Carlevaro and Federico Maccioni, editing by Agnieszka Flak)
