One of the government’s aims is to reduce Italy’s dependence on Russian natural gas by installing one or two new regasifiers in addition to the three regasifiers already on Italian territory. They are essential to obtain gas from countries to which Italy is not connected by a gas pipeline, however the construction of new plants in different parts of Italy has been strongly discouraged for years due to their environmental impact and other reasons. That’s why the government is talking about regasifiers on floating structures that could soon become operational.
Most of the imported gas reaches Italy via gas pipelines, i.e. long pipes through which the substance can flow. Some are entirely terrestrial, such as those transporting Russian gas and connected to the Italian grid at Tarvisio, in the province of Udine, others cross the Mediterranean Sea. However, there are none linking Italy to Qatar, the third country from which more gas was imported after Russia and Algeria in 2021, or to the Republic of Congo or Angola, countries from which the government plans to buy gas in the future. And clearly there are none linking Italy to the United States, the first country in the world to produce gas.
In the absence of pipelines, natural gas can be transported using special methane tankers (methane is its main component). First, however, liquefied, that is, transformed into liquefied natural gas, in the acronym LNG or LNG, from the English expression: in this way it occupies about 600 times less volume and a tanker can transport a much larger amount. Transporting gas by ship therefore requires equipment to convert the gas to the liquid state at the point of departure (i.e. equipment that cools and compresses it) and regasifiers at the point of arrival.
LNG is transported in ships at a pressure slightly above atmospheric and at a temperature of 162°C. In the regasifiers, it returns to the gaseous state thanks to a controlled heating process in an evaporator that has sufficient volume to allow the gas to expand. The heating is done by feeding the LNG into tubes that are submerged in seawater which is clearly a higher temperature.
(Treccani encyclopedia)
After returning to the gaseous state thanks to the regasifiers, the gas can be introduced into an area’s gas pipelines, distributed to households, and used by gasfired power plants to generate energy.
The Italian recarburetors currently in use are of three different designs. The largest is the Adriatic LNG Terminal and an offshore facility: an artificial island in the sea off Porto Viro in the province of Rovigo with an annual production capacity of 8 billion cubic meters of gas. It has been active since 2009 and is managed by a joint venture between major US oil company ExxonMobil (70 percent), stateowned oil company Qatar Petroleum (23 percent) and Snam (7 percent). which manages the Italian gas pipeline network.
Also in the Tyrrhenian Sea, off the coast between Livorno and Pisa, there is an offshore regasifier: it is a converted LNG tanker that is permanently anchored to the seabed and has been bringing gas into the grid since 2013. It has a capacity of 3.75 billion cubic meters annually; it is 49.07 percent owned by Snam, 48.24 percent by investment company First Sentier Investors and the remainder by LNG carrier leasing and management company Golar LNG.
The third operating regasifier is instead an onshore facility on the mainland and is located in Panigaglia in the province of La Spezia. It is the first regasifier ever built in Italy (it was built in the 1970s), has an annual capacity of 3.5 billion cubic meters and is owned by Snam.
The total capacity of the three regasifiers alone would not be enough to be able to inject into the Italian network an amount of gas equivalent to that imported from Russia in recent years (29 billion cubic meters of gas in 2021). In order to reduce energy dependency on Russia, however, the government wants to both make greater use of regasifiers and increase imports via pipelines from countries from which Italy already supplies today: for example from Algeria via TransMed and from Azerbaijan via the TransAdriatic or TAP.
The government has tasked Snam and Eni, Italy’s largest oil company, with finding an LNG tanker or two to convert into a floating regasification unit (in technical jargon, the regasification terminal is called this or with the initials FSRU), structures similar to the one before Livorno and Pisa, which can treat 5 or 6 billion cubic meters of gas per year. Where the implants will ultimately be placed is not yet known.
In this context, two projects for the construction of regasifiers that had been blocked for years were also discussed. One concerns Porto Empedocle in the province of Agrigento, the other Gioia Tauro in the province of Reggio Calabria.
The first project was originally presented in 2004, but after various bureaucratic vicissitudes, the Municipality of Agrigento had suspended the construction of the gas pipeline that would connect to the plant: the risks to the environment and possible damage to the archaeological sites in the excavation of the Pipeline they had been overestimated. In February, however, the Regional Administrative Court (TAR) of Palermo rejected the municipality’s appeal and now the pipeline could, at least in theory, be built. However, it is not certain that the Porto Empedocle regasification terminal will take place in a short time, since the Municipality of Agrigento can appeal to the Administrative Judicial Council of Sicily (CGARS) against the TAR decision.
The Gioia Tauro project, launched in 2005, has been suspended since 2013, but Minister for Sustainable Infrastructures and Mobility Enrico Giovannini said it could be taken into account.
In recent years, the construction of regasification plants in other areas of Italy had also been considered, but was then rejected by local referendums. In Trieste it was feared that this would disrupt the flow of goods to the port, in Priolo in the province of Syracuse it was feared that the facility would pose a danger to the population.