Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi will have to stay in Rome after being diagnosed with a coronavirus, but Italy continues to aim to sign new agreements with African countries for the supply of natural gas.
More specifically, on April 20 and 21, Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio and Ecological Transition Minister Roberto Cingolani will travel to Angels and Congo, in order to increase gas imports from these two countries.
According to the Corriere della Sera, The goal is to be able to secure 5 billion cubic meters of liquefied natural gas from the Congoand at least another 1.5 from Angola.
At the same time, last week Italy signed an agreement to increase gas imports from Algeria, with an additional 9 billion cubic meters within the period 2022-2023, while the formalization of new supplies from Mozambique is expected in the near future.
According to the Italian press, the government of Rome is also preparing to sign a similar agreement with Egypt, for the supply, this year, of three billion cubic meters of liquefied gas. However, there was a strong reaction from the Italian center-left regarding the strengthening of cooperation with Cairo: the “Democratic Party” stressed that the Egyptian authorities have not helped to solve the case of the death of the Italian investigator Julio Regeni. who was assassinated in 2016 in Cairo.
In relation to the general strategy of the Italian Government of wide involvement, the aim is to be able to replace – as efficiently as possible – the imports of natural gas from Russia, which, at this stage, reach 29 billion cubic meters per year.
Mario Draghi, of course, is well aware that a full replacement of Russian supplies will take – logically – two to three years, and that Italy will be forced – as it seems – to pay more, the new contracts with Asian and African Countries.
At this stage, however, there is a realistic approach, based on which all the necessary moves must be made, in a gradual and safe way, that will allow the country to cease to depend on a mandatory as well as an undesirable energy relationship with Russia. This whole line is reinforced by Draghi’s own statement that “by reducing gas imports from Moscow, we will stop financing Putin and his policies.”
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