Algiers, Algeria — Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and several ministers arrived in Algeria on Sunday, state media reported, ahead of meetings with top officials in the gas-exporting giant.
Prime Minister Aimene Benabderrahmane welcomed Meloni at Algiers’s main airport at the start of “a friendly working visit”, his office said.
She is the latest in a steady stream of European officials to visit since Russia invaded Ukraine in February last year.
Moscow’s move sparked Western sanctions and retaliatory Russian gas supply cuts that sent prices soaring.
Meloni’s predecessor Mario Draghi sealed a string of deals with Algeria’s President Abdelmadjid Tebboune in July.
Among them was an oil and gas production-sharing agreement between Algeria and several energy companies including Italian giant Eni, in a push to reduce Italy’s reliance on Russian supplies.
Tebboune said the deal was worth $4 billion, while an Algerian official said the country would also increase gas exports to Italy.
Meloni is set to meet Tebboune on Monday, according to Italy’s ANSA news agency.
Before the war in Ukraine, Italy imported 95 percent of the gas it consumed — about 40 percent of which came from Russia.
Rome has increasingly looked to Algeria, historically its second-biggest supplier, to help reduce that dependence.
Algeria, which has an undersea pipeline to Italy, is Africa’s biggest gas exporter.