In a nod to the visionary founding father of Italian oil main Eni, prime minister Giorgia Meloni spoke of a contemporary “Mattei plan” for Africa in her inauguration speech three months in the past.
Through the Nineteen Fifties, the late Enrico Mattei sought to help African nations’ improvement of their pure sources to assist the continent maximise its financial development potential and facilitate Italy’s vitality independence.
As Europe rethinks its vitality coverage and seeks to wean itself off Russian fuel, Italy is as soon as extra eyeing an analogous technique by means of its sector firms. Meloni, the chief of Italy’s nationalist rightwing authorities, mentioned: “After years of backtracking we’d prefer to regain our strategic function within the Mediterranean.”
The imaginative and prescient of Mattei, who was mysteriously killed in a aircraft crash in 1962, continues to be a piece in progress however, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine final yr, the query of vitality independence has gained new urgency. And Italy senses there are alternatives for its firms in coping with the area’s vitality disaster.
Specifically, Italian business specialists imagine that the deep data of state-controlled Eni of the African continent and its longstanding business ties to Center Japanese nations may flip right into a nationwide asset as Europe works to safe new vitality sources. Eni has operated in Africa since 1954, with operations in 14 nations.
Claudio Descalzi, chief govt of Eni, has told the Financial Times nearer collaboration with nations in Africa on vitality issues supplied the potential for a brand new “south-north axis” connecting the continent’s plentiful renewable and fossil gasoline sources with the energy-hungry markets of Europe.
Final yr the group entered a three way partnership with Doha’s QatarEnergy, the world’s largest liquefied pure fuel exporter, to develop the North Area East venture.
Beneath Mario Draghi’s former authorities final yr, Eni negotiated new provide agreements with Algeria, which has overtaken Russia as Italy’s major fuel provider. Eni mentioned it additionally deliberate to extend investments in nations together with the Republic of the Congo, Angola, Nigeria and Mozambique.
Africa has plentiful vitality sources however their improvement has suffered from under-investment. A sub-Saharan pipeline venture from Nigeria to Algeria, for instance, has been within the works for many years.
Now, European governments have indicated they wish to spend money on the present infrastructure to spice up flows from the area. Eni and Snam, which already function elements of the Trans Mediterranean Pipeline from Algeria to northern Italy, have an necessary function to play, in response to business specialists in Italy.
One other house wherein Italy may reap alternatives is vitality transition. North African nations have huge renewable vitality potential and sooner or later the area may very well be a inexperienced hydrogen manufacturing hub, a venture Snam has been discussing for years.
Former Snam chief Marco Alverà believes Italy has a number of benefits for renewable vitality in its geographical place, present infrastructure like storage capability and world-class engineering firms akin to Saipem and Maire Technimont.
“We have now to place the photo voltaic panels the place it’s sunny and the place there’s house, Europe doesn’t have sufficient house even the place it’s sunny, so we’ll should import renewable vitality,” says Alverà, who now heads Brussels-based inexperienced hydrogen firm TES and is the co-founder of renewable vitality firm Zhero.
Italy must also take inventory of its utility firm’s Enel’s experience, business specialists say. The €57bn vitality group can be a number one renewables producer in Europe and it already owns a big Sicily-based photo voltaic panel producer. The group may assist Italy turn out to be a number one participant in north Africa’s vitality business’s enlargement, the specialists say.
If the EU and Italy don’t step up their involvement in Africa, rivals are poised. Russia’s Gazprom has already manifested an curiosity within the sub-Saharan pipeline venture and held negotiations with Nigerian counterparties.
And Laura El-Katiri, a visiting fellow on the European Council for International Relations, factors out: “With out sturdy European engagement, north African nations are prone to depend on different, dominant suppliers in clear vitality worth chains, notably China.”
Such a state of affairs that will deal a big blow to the EU and to the Italian nationalist authorities’s quest to regain a number one function within the Mediterranean.
silvia.borrelli@ft.com
