How much money and aid Piombino will have for the regasification plant

26 October 20222 years ago babelfish

The Tuscany Region has authorized the installation of the Snam regasification plant in Piombino. All the (possible) contrasts between the mayor (FdI) and the government, the concessions in the bill for the inhabitants, the protests of Puglia (not pro Emiliano) and the proposal of the think tank Ecco a Meloni

On Tuesday 25 October, the president of the Tuscany Region, Eugenio Giani, authorized the installation of the floating regasification plant Golar Tundra in Piombino, near Livorno.

THE CONTEXT, IN BRIEF

The infrastructure – a ship purchased in June by Snam for 330 million euros, at the request of the government – has been much contested by the inhabitants of the municipality, but is considered essential for increasing our country's capacity to import liquefied gas (LNG). given the shortage of supplies from Russia and the energy detachment plans.

The Golar Tundra has a regasification capacity of 5 billion cubic meters per year, and is expected to go into operation in the spring of 2023. It will be positioned in the eastern quay of the port of Piombino and will remain there for three years.

THE CLASH BETWEEN REGION (PD) AND MAYOR (FdI)

Eugenio Giani, the president of the Tuscany Region and commissioner for the regasification plant, is a member of the Democratic Party.

The authorization signed by him was opposed by the mayor of Piombino, Francesco Ferrari , a member of the Brothers of Italy. Ferrari has already made it known that it will file an appeal with the TAR (Regional Administrative Court) and thinks that the installation of the Golar Tundra in the port is "harmful to the territory" and "a danger to the city and citizens".

WHAT MELONI THINK ABOUT THE PIOMBINO REGASIFIER

Ferrari's position does not seem to be shared by Giorgia Meloni, President of the Council and of the Brothers of Italy, who in her keynote speech to the Chamber said that Italy's energy priority is "the diversification of sources of supply and national production "; to meet these two objectives, extraction and grid connection infrastructures are required.

During the electoral campaign, Meloni declared that "the regasifiers must be built and must be done in the time that has been defined because we must free ourselves from the dependence on Russian gas". However, he added that "if there is a way to build a regasification plant not in Piombino which is a city that has already paid a lot for the absence of reclamation, it would be better". But he specified that, if the installation had been carried out, then it would have been necessary to “talk very seriously […] about the compensation that goes to the municipality of Piombino”.

THE MEMORANDUM FOR PIOMBINO

The installation of the regasification plant in Piombino is linked to a series of infrastructural works and economic benefits – the reduction of at least 50 per cent of bills, for example – for citizens and businesses in the area concerned, which are part of a so-called " ten-point memorandum. As summarized by Giani, the points are as follows:

Financing to complete the port infrastructure both for the regasification quay and for local activities (fishing, fish farming, tourism);
Concessions for at least 50 percent on energy bills to businesses and families residing in the municipalities of Piombino, Campiglia Marittima, San Vincenzo and Suvereto;
Unblocking of the problem relating to the public safety of the aquifer in the Piombino SIN;
Funding of 200 million euros for the removal and management of the so-called ex-iron and steel piles in the public areas of the SIN;
Loan of 100 million for the renewable energy park for Piombino and the Val di Cornia;
Completion of the two lots connecting the port to the SS 398;
Availability of the Ministry of the Environment to manage accelerated processes for the approval of projects and adjustments to port regulatory plans that may be necessary (reclamation, safety measures);
Approval of the proposal for a simplified logistics area including Piombino;
Refinancing of a national fund of 30 million for subsidies and investments of local companies and active employment policies useful for the redevelopment of the industrial center of Piombino;
Annual support of 1 million to the Parks of the Val di Cornia to manage and enhance the tourism and environmental potential of the area.

The measures have been contested by local associations, which do not consider them sufficient to compensate for the installation of the ship, which is 300 meters long and 40 meters wide.

WHERE WILL THE GOLAR TUNDRA GO?

The Golar Tundra will remain in Piombino for three years, but Snam's (authorized) request covers a period of twenty-five: it is not clear at the moment where the regasification terminal will be repositioned for the remaining twenty-two years.

Giani stated that Snam will communicate the next destination of the ship – which may not be in Tuscany – within about forty days.

THE PROTEST OF AMATI (PUGLIA)

Fabiano Amati , Puglia's PD regional councilor, said he had “begged everyone, including President Emiliano, to nominate Puglia for an offshore regasification plant. And instead I listened, in response, only gne-gne and dissipation of words ".

"Today", adds the exponent of the Apulian center-left for some time in a critical position towards the governor Michele Emiliano, "we discover what one could imagine: among the conditions set by the Tuscany Region, a series of compensatory works and the discounted bill of 50 percent for the citizens of Piombino and neighboring municipalities. A result of growth, environmental security, peace and even discounts. We still have some chances to make up for lost time, applying for the next and imminent occasions ”.

“It was well known”, continues the councilor, “that in order to bid farewell to Russian gas, Italy had to recover 30 billion cubic meters of gas otherwise. And all this through various infrastructures, such as gas pipelines, LNG tanks and regasifiers […]. In this scenario, the role of Puglia could have been characterized, by culture and geography, towards the reception of technologies, so as to fully exercise the role of gateway to the Mediterranean ”.

"If all this was certainly not rhetoric, you had to run for a leading role", he concludes. “Not doing so is obviously having the consequence of losing opportunities, as we have unfortunately already seen with the TAP pipeline. We only hope that this further teaching will be useful to definitively understand the importance of these topics ".

THE GOVERNORS 'PROPOSAL (ECHO)

Michele Governatori, analyst of the ECCO climate think tank dedicated to energy transition, guest of Ruggero Po 's podcast, defined the Piombino regasification plant a "bad infrastructure idea" because it has "considerable economic costs": not only the 330 million paid by Snam and guaranteed by the State, to which must be added the costs of connecting to the network, but also the costs of alternative non-use of the portion of the port occupied by the ship.

According to Governors, the utility of the Piombino regasification plant will soon reduce, because Italian gas consumption will have to decrease to ensure compliance with the emission targets. He argues that Italy could, in the short term, contain the impact of the energy crisis by saving gas consumption, transforming subsidies into "selective aid and not unlimited in terms of consumption".

“The first thing that, I believe, the new government will have to do,” says the analyst, “is to make aid selective. So tie them not only to income, as in part already are the energy bonuses, but also to limit them to a quantity of consumption, not of subsistence, but of reasonableness ”.

This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/energia/piombino-rigassificatore-memorandum/ on Wed, 26 Oct 2022 10:13:32 +0000.