The Prirodni Plin gas supply company, a member of Croatia's oil and gas group INA, has signed a deal with Italy's ENI to receive natural gas shipments from January 2011.

The contract was signed for a period of three years, with annual deliveries amounting to 750 million cubic metres of natural gas, INA said in a statement on Thursday.

The existing contract on gas supply between Prirodni Plin and Russia's Gazprom on the import of Russian gas expires at the end of this year.

This year Prirodni Plin invited bids for the provision of natural gas for the first time. According to unconfirmed media reports, the bidders were Gazprom, Germany's E-on and ENI.

The annual consumption of natural gas in Croatia is around three billion cubic metres, of which 60-65 per cent is produced in the country, and 35-40 per cent is imported.

In early December the Hungarian oil and gas group MOL, which owns 47 per cent of INA, publicly launched an effort to purchase the eight percent of shares in the company that are held by institutional and private investors and become the firm's majority owner. The Croatian government owns the other 44 per cent of INA.