Paolo Scaroni, now vice-president of the Rothschild investment bank and former CEO of the Italian oil company Eni and Enal, says that in the face of the energy crisis Italy has a tool that no other country can boast of: Eni, describing it as a winning weapon in Africa.
Scaroni said, in a press interview, Thursday: Our oil company is the first operator of hydrocarbons on the African continent. Germany does not have a German Eni nor does Austria or the Czech Republic.
He emphasized, saying: We have a more important trump card if we take into account our geographical location in the middle of the Mediterranean with a network of pipelines linking Europe with North Africa, according to the Italian “Decode 39” website.
During her visit to Algeria, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni launched Mattei’s plan to make Italy an energy center in Europe. Scaroni considered it an excellent idea and the government is moving well, saying that if today Algeria has gas, it is thanks to Eni that since 2015 has made important discoveries in this field. Country.
He emphasized that the discoveries boosted Algeria’s national reserves, pointing out that Algeria is currently exporting more gas because it has more of it.
And he considered that the idea of Italy becoming a huge pipeline with the capacity to supply all of Europe is “possible,” but on the condition that Algerian gas production and the pipeline system linking the African country with Sicily be strengthened.
Scaroni added: We Europeans import one hundred and fifty billion cubic meters of gas from Russia a year, while Algeria provides us with twenty, which is not sufficient to fully cover Italian needs.
So Algerian production and pipelines must be increased, the Adriatic line must be doubled and infrastructure is needed.
He said that Italy has an advantage as the pipelines already exist and African gas is less expensive than liquefied gas from the United States and Qatar.
Scaroni believed that in Algeria, the Matti and Eni plan are seen as pioneers in the process of liberating the country from French colonialism due to the support of the National Liberation Front in the fifties.
Regarding Libya, Scaroni said that the situation is more complicated despite the gas agreement that was signed last Saturday in the capital, Tripoli, between Eni and the Libyan National Oil Company.
He added that everyone in Libya is on the sidelines, considering that it is a failed state today from a technical point of view and in a complete political impasse, which represents a “big problem for us” as we are accustomed to importing about ten billion cubic meters of gas annually, and today less than one billion is imported, stressing Without political stability, there is no development.
Eni’s CEO, Claudio Descalzi, said that “we will be able to do without Russian gas completely in the winter of 2024-2025.” Scaroni emphasized this, saying: We will continue to import about twenty million cubic meters of Russian gas per day.
He continued: We have doubled the import of liquefied gas from the United States of America, which is more expensive, indicating that the industrial system in Europe and Italy must deal in the long term with a higher energy price than it is in the United States of America.