Austria blast causes gas crunch in Italy

ROME, December 12, 2017 – Italy was set to declare a state of emergency covering its energy imports, and natural gas supplies into much of Europe were disrupted after an explosion at an Austrian hub, international media reported on Tuesday.

At least 18 were reported injured and one was believed to have been killed after the Baumgarten compressor station, which transports roughly 10% of Europe’s gas, experienced a blast and fire at around 9am. The facility was shut down and officials from Russia’s Gazprom, its main gas supplier, told Bloomberg that the company “is working on redistribution of gas flows and [doing] its best to secure uninterrupted gas supplies to the clients on this transport direction.”

The news came amid a spell of unusually cold weather throughout the continent and followed an outage at the UK’s largest North Sea crude pipeline that drove Brent prices above USD 65 per barrel for the first time since 2015.

Brent crude futures for February 2018 delivery were at USD 65.22 per barrel at 2:22pm London time.

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