EU should cap gas prices at 60 euros per megawatt hour, Italy says

ROME (Reuters) - The European Union should extend its emergency cap on gas prices and set a ceiling of 60 euros per megawatt hour to prevent a possible energy price shock, Italy's Energy Minister Gilberto Pichetto Fratin said on Friday.

Fears of an energy shock have risen after Ukraine refused to renew a gas transit agreement with Russia, marking the end of decades of Moscow's dominance over Europe's energy markets.

The EU's existing gas price cap expires at the end of this month and only applies if European gas prices exceed 180 euros per megawatt hour, a level that has not been reached since the early days of the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

"I think the EU should at this point renew the price cap but not at 180 euros, now it should be set at 50 or 60 euros," the Italian minister said during a radio interview.

The benchmark front-month contract at the Dutch TTF hub was up 0.09 euros at 49.85 euros per megawatt hour (MWh) at 1108 GMT, according to LSEG data.

Fratin said Italy had enough gas reserves to overcome the next two months without disruption.

"I reassure everyone, we have no problems. The country's gas storage system is filled to at almost 80%" of its capacity, he said.

(Reporting by Giuseppe Fonte, editing by Alessandro Parodi and Christina Fincher)