MILAN (Reuters) - Italy can significantly increase gas imports from Africa and shift some of its supplies to Northern Europe if it upgrades its infrastructure in the coming years.

Speaking from Algiers, where he traveled with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Descalzi said Rome can already count on many connections with Africa, including the TransMed pipeline linking Algeria to Sicily.

"We are the only ones who have a connection with Algeria ... which has a capacity of about 36 billion cubic meters of gas, which is still underutilized: there are still more than 10 billion that can come to Italy," Descalzi told Il Messaggero.

Last year Algeria became Italy's main gas supplier, replacing a considerable share of the 29 billion cubic meters of gas that previously came from Russia.

In addition to the TransMed pipeline, Italy could also rely on a pipeline from Libya and liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports from Egypt, Angola, the Republic of Congo and Mozambique.

"We then have a connection with Libya that is now worth about 12-14 billion cubic meters in terms of capacity, which can go up with adequate compression additions of several billion," Eni's CEO said.

Italy is also considering doubling to 20 billion cubic meters the capacity of the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (Tap) that transports Azeri gas to Puglia.

The government sees a central role for supplies between Africa and Northern Europe in the coming years to help offset declining imports from Russia.

"Our goal is to have an oversupply of gas to be able to bring energy to Northern Europe," Descalzi said, adding that Italy needs both to expand its national gas grid and to develop energy corridors to Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

In 2021, Italy used about 75 billion cubic meters of gas, 38 percent of which came from Russia. The government plans to completely replace Russian gas by the end of 2024.

Eni and Algeria's Sonatrach yesterday signed two agreements to reduce carbon emissions and study joint projects to improve the North African country's energy export capacity.

(Translated by Chiara Bontacchio, editing Stefano Bernabei)