Italy supports Albania for gas pipeline

The biggest Italian energetic company, the state owned Enel, declared that they are interested on the project that includes Albania in the international gas network.

“Enel is interested in all projects that bring gas in Italy”, declared Fulvio Conti, the executive director of the Italian energy giant.

This is the first time when Rome officially declares its interest to join the pipeline that goes through Albania. The Italian government had strongly supported the rival project, that one that goes through Italy-Turkey and Greece, but the Italian-Greek project was ruled out two months earlier, when the Shah Deniz shareholders  declared that if they will chose Italy as their final gas destination, their preferred course is the Trans Adriatic project.

The elimination of the Greek-Italian project left Italy outside the new gas corridors, and for Rome this would be a considerable loss. Last week, the Italian Minister of energy, Corrado Passera, declared that it is very important for an Italian company to be included in any of the projects that will win the competition, in order to have an Italian company involevd in any of the projects that will win. The Reuters news agency declared that the Italian government has asked Enel to buy at least 15% of the Trans-Adriatic project.

There are three projects that are competing for bringing the Azerbaijani gas to Europe. Besides the pipeline that supports Albania, there are two other ones, the Nabuco and the South Stream project, which is supported by the Russian Energy Giant, Gazprom.

But both these projects go from Turkey to Central Europe, by avoiding Italy and Greece. In these conditions, Rome and Athens are obliged to support the project that is also strongly supported by Tirana. Analysts say that the involvement of Italy in the Trans Adriatic project is a good news, because it increases the chances for this project to be declared winner.

The lack of the Italian support had been considered so far as one of the weakest point of the project that goes through Albania.

The Trans Adriatic Pipeline is a project of three giant shareholders in the energy field, the Swiss “Egl”, the German “Rurgas” and the Norwegian “Statoil”.

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