In all, another three billion cubic meters of methane more, 4% of the annual requirement of the whole of Italy: one billion already obtained and another two billion cubic meters to be added with a plant investment. Adriatic Lng, the company that since 2009 manages the large regasification plant in the middle of the Adriatic off the coast of Rovigo, has just obtained the authorization to increase the capacity to import methane from 8 to 9 billion cubic meters a year. liquid, but with an investment of around 150 million – all from its own pocket – it has decided to upgrade the plant even more and to reach 11 billion cubic meters a year, one of the largest in Europe.
Between the increase just authorized and the one planned, there are a total of 3 billion cubic meters of gas to be liquefied on remote fields, imported by ship at a high price and restored to the gaseous state – as much as the 3 billion cubic meters per year they extract in an obstructed and listless way from the national deposits that are right under the seabed of that same Adriatic Sea.
However, there is a problem. The usual Italian problem of bureaucracy, of times, of authorizations that move away like the mirage that dissolves and retreats. To adapt the colossal regasification island to 20 kilometers off the Po delta, it will be necessary to wait for the moment when there will be a stop for periodic maintenance, i.e. 2025.
2025 seems like a remote date, three years from now. Given the average times of the Italian authorization system, there is the certainty that if we left today, the green light would arrive at expired times. For this reason, Adriatic Lng hopes that the same regulatory simplification will be adopted that the Energy decree grants to the new Frsu regasification vessels that Italy is equipping itself with frenzied care.
The regasification plant of today
The regasification terminal in front of the Rovigo coast is of Adriatic Lng (ExxonMobil 71%, Qatar Energy 22%, Snam 7%), the main customer is Edison but also carries out the service for the open market of gas carriers, has 100 employees and since March the regasification capacity has risen from 8 to 9 billion cubic meters per year, 12% of the Italian gas requirement, without the need for plant interventions. Since 2009, 925 LNG carriers equal to 78 billion cubic meters of gas have moored. Methane is kept liquid by the freezing temperature of 162 degrees below zero; heated with sea water, the methane returns to the state of gas and goes into the pipelines to land.