Diversification of supplies through new contracts to increase the incoming volumes of gas and liquefied natural gas from alternative routes to the Russian one, to which must be added the 2 billion cubic meters more of national production that will restart from Sicily. Policies to reduce energy consumption, starting from public offices, but which, in the event of a stop to gas in Moscow, could also lead to the disconnection of industrial users with an overall saving, without compromising the system, of about 3 billion cubic meters per year in terms of non-use of gas. And again, another package of simplifications to accelerate new green installations, also unblocking the last bottlenecks in terms of regional authorizations and the green light of the superintendencies.
Towards a new aid decree on Thursday
These would be the main axes of the overall gas strategy that the government wants to bring to the next Council of Ministers. The meeting, barring last minute changes, will be convened for next Thursday and should dismiss the new decree with the aid to the economy which will also contain the new rules to intensify the progressive release from the 29 billion cubic meters per year supplied by Moscow. A process that is moving very quickly thanks to Prime Minister Mario Draghi’s commitment at the forefront, so much so that, two days ago, even the German newspaper Die Welt spoke of an Italy faster than Germany in closing agreements with other countries to become independent of Russian energy.
The gas agreements
A series of agreements, from Algeria (ready to ensure an additional 9 billion cubic meters per year from 2023) to the double win, just achieved by the mission of the ministers Luigi Di Maio (Foreign) and Roberto Cingolani (Ecological transition), in Congo and Angola , passing through the approximately 2 billion additional cubic meters via Tap already from the end of this year, which should ensure a total of approximately 22.5 billion additional cubic meters of gas by the end of 2023. To these will be added the 2 billion more cubic meters of domestic gas that the government would not be willing to accelerate with a new decree unblocking drills that modifies the perimeter set by Pitesai, the regulatory plan of the fields, but through a detailed amendment.
The contributions of the deposits in the Adriatic
A technical facilitation, in short, thanks to which the areas adjacent to Eni’s Argo and Cassiopea projects in Sicily will not be included in the off-limits areas for extraction activities. In this way, production will be able to restart from here (where sector estimates indicate the potential in terms of reserves at 10 billion cubic meters), thus raising the national bar, also due to the contribution provided by other fields in the lower Adriatic, between Marche and Emilia Romagna.
The role of coal-fired power plants
The further sprint on the alternative gas front to that of Russia will be accompanied by the “buffer” guaranteed by coal-fired power plants. The road that the executive intends to take would be to maximize the operation of the 4 power plants (Fusina, Torrevaldaliga and Brindisi of Enel, Monfalcone of A2A) which, at the moment, are not pumping at maximum revs. By increasing the capacity to 100%, a saving of approximately 3.5 billion cubic meters per year would be obtained due to the lack of use of gas. But the operation will still be timed: no more than two years and with six-monthly checks.