It takes up the investment mothballed seven years ago by previous governments for the Porto Empedocle regasification terminal. These are the unequivocal words of Enel's number one, Francesco Starace, during a conference on "Merita" reported by Ansa. Starace announces the resumption, with an investment of 1 billion, of the construction of the blocked regasification terminal in Sicily. “A regasification terminal – continues Starace – which has all the permits which, for seven years, we have renewed year after year waiting for the green light to finally be given for this type of investment: around one billion on Porto Empedocle to equip Sicily to receive gas tankers and give gas supply flexibility”.
After weeks of silence, the multinational takes a position on the possibility of building the expected energy plant in the Agrigento area, capable of transforming gas from a liquid to a gaseous state. In the face of the latest events of the war in Ukraine, in which European leaders are studying further sanctions against Moscow, the urgency of alternative sources of gas is growing precisely with a view to cutting the bridges that link the Old Continent with the Kremlin, which is worth more or less 900 million euros a day at current prices.
Meanwhile, Snam is on the hunt for regasification ships. The "simplest, fastest and least expensive solution", said the Minister of Ecological Transition Roberto Cingolani. “We are quite advanced with the first one”; the knot to solve remains the location because these ships must be moored in safe waters and near an entry point of the gas pipelines. "We will guarantee maximum speed, it is essential to have the first ship at least in the coming months", concluded Cingolani in an interview with Radio24. The Draghi government has already identified four ports that should host these hubs. Among these, there is also Porto Empedocle.
The Porto Empedocle regasification terminal is back on track
Presented by Enel through its subsidiary Nuove Energie over 15 years ago, the project has been shelved. After various legal battles, today the one and a half billion euro project is finally making a comeback, thanks to the war in Ukraine and the rise in energy prices.
In detail, the project includes a regasification terminal 8 billion cubic meters of gas (one tenth of the national requirement) and work for over 3 years, barring resistance and territorial opposition. In fact, the works had been interrupted in 2010 by a sentence of the Lazio Regional Administrative Court, which had accepted the appeals of the Municipality of Agrigento and of the city committee "No Rigasificatore", of which Legambiente is also a member. Even today there are those who do not approve the project, such as the pentastellati who request to review it as it would not be "acceptable" to build a similar plant near a Unesco heritage site. But the new plant is not visible from the Valley of the Temples in Agrigento and would allow ships from all over the world to be welcomed, as well as creating new jobs, going to reduce Italy's dependence on a single country for gas supplies .
