Eni decided that natural gas would supply the energy needed from the crisis of the 1973 oil embargo. They import gas from the Soviet Union and the Netherlands. Snam started the Transmediterranean pipeline, moving gas from the Hassi-R-Mel field in Algeria to the Po Valley. The gas pipeline was more than 2,500 km or 1550 miles long. It started in the Algerian desert and crosses Tunisia. It then crosses the Sicilian Channel at a water depth of over 650 metres or 2100 feet. Next it goes through Sicily and up the length of the entire Italian peninsula.