Alexei Miller and Paolo Scaroni held a working meeting at Gazprom's headquarters on Thursday. The Gazprom CEO informed Scaroni of the "critical situation in relations with Ukraine and on the moves being made by Gazprom to end the crisis."
"Gazprom and Eni agreed to speed up the work of the joint working group with preparations for the South Stream project," Gazprom said in a statement. Italy is the second largest importer of Russian gas in Europe.
The Russian energy giant said earlier that it had received a third refusal from Ukraine's Naftogaz to transit Russian gas on to Europe citing the absence of "technical" gas transfer agreement for 2009.
Moscow insists its gas exit points have been open with gas pressure along the export pipeline sufficient to allow for the immediate resumption of gas transits to Europe, and has also urged alternative transit routes.
"The sides noted that in these conditions the issue of diversifying export gas routes, in particular the fulfillment of the South Stream project, that would link Russia directly with Europe and strengthen the energy security of the continent, is very topical," the statement said.
Russia is currently building the Nord Stream pipeline, a joint project with Germany to pump gas from Siberia to Europe under the Baltic Sea, and the South Stream pipe which will bring gas to the Balkans and on to Europe.
The first deliveries along the South Stream pipeline are scheduled to start in 2013. The project, expected to annually pump 30 billion cubic meters of Central Asian and Russian gas to the Balkans and on to other European countries, involves Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary, Italy and Greece.
