The energy calendar has rewound the tape. When green Europe was already aiming for the epic of the new deal made of sun and wind, the war between Russia and Ukraine, on the eastern border of Europe, blew up plans and strategies. All backs to the wall, with a headlong chase to grab barrels of oil, cubic meters of gas and new energy dependencies. For decades the pendulum has bounced between the Arab countries and Russia, stopping for a long time on the Moscow side, thanks to Russian-German infrastructures capable of subjecting Europe to the diktats of the Kremlin tsar. Until the war show-down. In the blink of an eye, overnight, the hands of the clock have turned back twenty years, with the West without fuel and without renewables. Plans overturned, strategies to be rewritten, knowing full well that dependence on Russian gas and oil cannot be canceled with press releases or price caps.
Change the scenery
For this reason, the official decision of the government of Algiers, through the Minister of Energy Mohamed Abkar, reported yesterday by the Sardinian Union, to relaunch the construction of the Galsi pipeline, linking Algeria with Sardinia and Europe, is something more than a change of scenery. In Algeria's proposal there are elements that go well beyond the construction of a methane pipeline, but which constitute fundamental prerequisites for rewriting the relations between the Maghreb, Sardinia, Italy and Europe. There is a first element that cannot be overlooked: it is the first time that a producer-extractor of methane and oil of Algeria's importance is a candidate to concretely govern the ecological transition. It does so not with chatter but with an approach to the future capable of combining the emergencies-urges of the present with the now imminent environmental challenge of the future.
Hydrogen-ready
Algeria, instead of siding in the tout court defense of fossil fuels, puts forward the proposal to build, without wasting any more time, a latest generation methane pipeline, technically defined as hydrogen ready, i.e. already ready to transport the fuel of the future, the hydrogen, the one produced by water, the sun and the wind. An epochal transition because for the first time in the world arena we set a goal capable of giving immediate answers for the present, targeting the energy future in a strategic and innovative way. When all seemed lost, an unexpected window reopened for Sardinia with the future and energy innovation. Absurdly, the world energy crisis has put a scenario capable of putting the island back in the role of a forerunner, rather than a mere pursuer. The Algerian proposal for the construction of a hydrogen pipeline would put Sardinia back in that advantageous position conquered twenty years ago when the company agreement was planned, designed and signed for the construction of the Galsi, the pipeline linking the Algerian side, Sardinia, Piombino and the rest of Europe.
Bridging the gap
That gas pipeline, with two sections at sea and one on land, that of Sardinia, would have ferried the island towards a real and complete ecological transition given that it would have made it possible to lay the foundations for eliminating the island's energy gap, giving time to build the platform strategy of Hydrogen Island. Today, albeit twenty years late, Sardinia could combine in one fell swoop that plan of twenty years ago, stalled by political responsibilities and national and international opposition.
Algiers looks ahead
Despite excesses, including the unilateral imposition of the exclusive economic zone on international waters close to the Sardinian coast, the Algerian interlocutor has a strategic objective which obliges him to accelerate the challenge of the ecological transition. The energy minister of Algiers said it in no uncertain terms when announcing the relaunch of Galsi: Algeria does not want to lose its role as Russia's counterpart on the energy-Mediterranean front. To do this, Europe itself anticipates, not only by meeting the new energy generation outlined by Brussels, but by offering itself as the most reliable interlocutor in North Africa also on the fuel of the future, hydrogen. In this new scenario, Sardinia would not only be the physical pivot of the revolutionary project, but would become strategic in the Mediterranean, rebalancing a gap that has hitherto been permanent, the absence of methane, and above all becoming the first European hydrogen region.
The last call
In practice, through the Algerian project, the Sardinian route to hydrogen would be opened up for Sardinia, allowing the Region, through its statutory powers, to produce in full autonomy, through the renewables already available in the Sardinian territory, the hydrogen necessary for own needs. A plan to be developed over a maximum of ten, 15 years, starting from the assumption, however, that the main infrastructure, the Galsi, would be equipped with highly advanced technology and pipelines capable of managing both the first methane phase and the subsequent hydrogen phase.
Two issues: Italy & Eni
There are two kinds of issues that need to be addressed: the role of the Italian State and that of the subjects implementing the project. Until now, it was Eni that handed over the energy cards, in Italy and beyond. The company that once belonged to Enrico Mattei has always governed the game in a monopolist key, forgetting the public function of energy governance. The result was consequent: to prevent other subjects from entering the gas market in Italy. A monopoly obsession that has been unleashed against Sonatrach itself, the Algerian state company, which has always been Galsi's majority shareholder together with Edison, Enel, Hera and above all the Region of Sardinia, the first regional institution to enter into an energy shareholding. Therefore, it is a question of understanding whether the Meloni government's energy agenda will also be dictated by ENI or if instead, in a farsighted and strategic way, the Premier will adopt the project advanced by Algeria so that Italy becomes the European hub of Mediterranean gas and, above all, take up the challenge to build the first European infrastructure prepared for the technological challenge of hydrogen. The second front is that relating to the subjects called to manage the project.
Mao's cat
In this case Mao Tse-tung's lecture on cat and mouse is as crude as it is effective: "The cat need not be black or white, as long as it can catch the mouse." The Galsi company was put into liquidation in 2020, the Sardinian Region clumsily left it a few years earlier, and in fact the corporate structure will have to be reconstituted. It is clear that for economic and institutional relations the Algerian Sonatrach would be the leader, this time involving both Eni and the subjects who will be holders of the shares in liquidation. Certainly the Sardinian Region today has a significant backing to forcefully put on the table of the government a scenario that changes radically, thanks to this relaunch of the Algerian government.
Tight deadlines
There isn't much time. The Council of State has given the State and the Region three months to settle the dispute over Sardinia's energy governance. If the Algerian proposal finds a side from the Region on the government table, an unprecedented scenario would open up, with the Island as the protagonist and not an energy colony as the Draghi government had put on paper. One fact is certain: it will take much less time to build the hydrogen-ready pipeline rather than building improbable regasification plants on the coast or invasions of wind turbines at sea and on land. The methane pipeline would be the quickest answer for the conversion of power stations, the recovery of industrial production and above all a reduction of at least 40% of the cost of Sardinian energy bills. There is only one limit to all of this: time. Sardinia, for hidden interests and negligence, has lost twenty years. Now a glimmer has opened, which is decisive for not ending up in the abyss, to relaunch the strategic position of the island in the Mediterranean. An unrepeatable opportunity.
