Giovedì, 28 marzo 2024 - ore 23.06

Italy and Russia in a gas contrast

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Italy and Russia in a gas contrast

The Italian government supports ENI national concern's intention to ask Russian major Gazprom the remove of take or pay clause. The contractual dispute could modify a historically strong relationship

A dispute on contractual clauses can lead to the end and historical cooperation. On wednesday 10/17, Italian Minister of the Economic Development Corrado Passera sentenced that the contractual fees between Italian concern ENI and the Russian major Gazprom are inadmissible for the Italian economy.

"I've no idea about what concrete measures ENI is going to bring, but we totally support our national concern" told Minister Passera, Natural Gas Europe reported.

Minister Passera's declaration went after ENI CEO Paolo Scaroni's public speech in the senate, in which the Italian concern leader denounced the existence of an expensive take or pay clause.

Take or pay clause obliges ENI to pay Gazprom the fees for 8,7 bcm of gas despite of its effective utilization.

On April 2012, ENI obtained from Gazprom a 600 million EUR discount for the gas bought since 2011, but had to give back those money to the Russian major to pay the fees lied with take or pay clause.

The take or pay clause has been denounced by other European companies, as the PGNiG in Poland.

According to the wpn.pl infoportal, also the Polish national company asked Gazprom to remove the clause, but obtained a negative answer.

As observed by Russian Vedomosti, ENI position toward Gazprom is better than the PGNiG one, as the Italian concern is involved with Gazprom in Southstream project: a pipeline planed by Russia to carry Russian gas directly to the Balkans.

Southstream pipeline is a geopolitical priority for Russia. It isolates several European countries as Ukraine, Romania and Poland, and allow Gazprom to maintain the monopoly on gas market in Europe.

Moreover, Southstream realization stops the European Commission Southern Corridor construction, which Brussels planed to carry Azeri gas in the EU to diversify Europe gas supplies.

On the other hand, Poland is now isolated from the energetic point of view after Nordstream pipeline construction.

The Nordstream pipeline carries Russian gas directly to Germany under the Baltic Sea. The pipeline's construction removed the transit fees clauses Poland used to ask Gazprom. For this reason, PGNiG has now no argues to convince the Russian major to remove take or pay clause.

A break in the relationship between Gazprom and ENI should represent and historical deal, because the cooperation between  the Italian concern the russian major is quite strong.

On 2005, ENI took part with Gazprom and Turkish national company Botas in the Blue Stream project: a sub-marine pipeline from Russia to Turkey planned to avoid the realization of a similar project by Georgia, Romania and Ukraine.

On 2006, the Minister of the Economic Development Pierluigi Bersani allowed Gazprom to sell gas in the Italian market from 2009. On exchange, the left wing Italian politician obtained from Moscow the permission for ENI to participate in Yukos Russian company's sell.

In 2008, Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi strengthened the partnership between Italy and Russia, and ENI became the most important Gazprom buyer after German companies.

In 2009, right wing PM Berlusconi also encouraged ENI to take part in Southstream project.

The Italian energetic policy, led from 2011 by the Mario Monti's technical government, changed after the sign by Italy of an intergovernmental agreement with Albania and Greece in support of the Trans Adriatic Pipeline -TAP.

The TAP pipeline is of the European Commission Southern Corridor project, planed to carry gas from Azerbaijan to Italy, in which Italian second energetic company ENEL declared the will to cooperate.

 

Matteo Cazzulani

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