Mohamed Arkab, on the bank opposite Porto Botte, close to Koudiet Drauche, on the Algerian coast in front of the Sulcis, is much more than a minister of the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria. Ever since the world began whoever occupies that seat in a country full of oil and methane has in fact been Minister of Foreign Affairs, Economy and Infrastructure. Not a key place, but the key to everything. After all, today the world of energy, especially in the West, is already divided into two great eras, before and after the war between Russia and Ukraine. Scenarios reversed without warning, energy extras out of the blue transformed into protagonists of a geopolitical chessboard that rotates according to oil wells, pipelines and rare materials.
Irruption in Rome
For this reason, Mohamed Arkab's irruption into the Parco dei Principi in Rome in recent days on the occasion of the Rome-Med, the world conference on the Mediterranean, is much more than improvised. The parterre is one of those filled with barrels and weapons galore. Everyone is there, from heads of state to arms dealers, from hardened oilmen to financial observers. All there to see what is happening on that southern shore of the West, long since disused and forgotten, recalled only for immigration and conflicts classified as regional. After all, since Russia put its hand to the phantom "special operation" to invade Ukraine, Europe and Italy, long bent and prone to Moscow's energy, have tried to run for cover by falling back on the front of Maghreb, the opposite bank of the Sulcis, a borderland on the island of Sardinia.
The new course
The pitiful rush to scrape together a few barrels of oil and a few billion cubic meters of methane on the Mediterranean front, with a sad attempt to alleviate dependence on Putin's empire, was more a staging than a strategic vision of the new course. Nothing forward-looking on the horizon, just a scrambling in search of hasty and provisional solutions. Not because there aren't any strategic ones, but perhaps because many of those who consider themselves the so-called energy stakeholders have any interest except that of letting other subjects enter the market, let alone new infrastructures capable of undermining monopolies and speculations . No one in that reserved audience, in the dim light of the hotel which has always been destined for international summits, for meetings to be kept under wraps, expected the Algerian Minister of Energy to arrive. There was no trace in the invitations, even today the official communications of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs totally elude his presence.
Algerian lightning
Yet Mohamed Arkab, on tiptoe, with Arab-Western features, the latest stock Hermes tie, crystal university glasses over the edge, in that "panel" of the Energy Forum appeared like a bolt from the blue. A blitz with a clear and well-defined mission, to break into the international debate with a project destined to overturn the energy history of the Mediterranean, rewrite the relations between Algeria, Italy and Europe. All this with Sardinia as the protagonist, not only the physical but also the strategic pivot of that Euro-Mediterranean logistics platform which has its central position on the island between Gibraltar and Suez. The Minister of Algiers speaks off the cuff, but he has the trace engraved in a press release that is issued at the same time as his speech in the Rome assembly. At the same time that it takes the floor at the Parc des Princes, the Algerian Development Agency nails the inverted comma of Algerian energy number one on its home page.
Strategic pact
The premise is not simply to create a new energy infrastructure, but the signing of a real "strategic" pact between Algeria and the West. No longer an occasional confrontation with the bargaining of barrels and cubic meters, but an axis capable of redesigning the scenario of relations in the Mediterranean. Arkab says it to be understood: "for Algeria, the energy partnership is a strategic choice, which is part of an approach that has allowed our country to establish itself as a historic, secure and reliable energy supplier". This is the premise for closing the disposable season and laying solid foundations for the future: «Algeria is working to maintain this status in the international energy scene».
Ready 40 billion
From the strategic premise to hurry up, the step is very short. He doesn't talk about motes Arkab: "We have a very ambitious investment program in the hydrocarbon field estimated at over 40 billion dollars". The Algerian objective is marked by two numbers: "This investment plan will allow us to maintain a production level of 110 billion m3/year of natural gas, over 50% of which is destined for export". It is in this passage, in an audience dumbfounded by the economic announcement, including Eni's number one Claudio Descalzi, that the father-master energy minister of the Maghreb announces in no uncertain terms, with verbatim words, the decisive and without appeal relaunch of the pipeline to connect Algeria to Sardinia and Europe.
Ready for Galsi
His statements are clear: «We are also attentive to the needs of our customers, and we are ready to relaunch and update the studies for the GALSI gas pipeline, which will connect Algeria to Sardinia». To avoid not being understood, Mohamed Arkab also opens his eyes to those who up to now in the government of Rome, at least until the Draghi era, then we will see, have kept them tightly closed. The statement is without preamble and without mincing words: "The construction of this second gas pipeline will allow Italy to strengthen its role as a European gas hub". As if to say, if you want to continue sleeping, go ahead, but know that we are ready.
Italian silence
The news bounces like a fury in all the specialized media worldwide, in Italy, however, until today, absolute silence. Certainly the Algerian relaunch on the methane pipeline connecting the southern shore of the Mediterranean and Sardinia constitutes a real change of pace with respect to the improvised management of the Draghi government on the energy affair, not only in Italy but also in Europe. Absurdly, it takes less time, with much more effectiveness, to make Galsi than to "smear" the coasts of Sardinia and Italy with high-impact and dangerous regasification terminals.
Authorized only
After all, the pipeline between Algeria, Sardinia and Piombino is the only infrastructure that has passed all the authorization phases and has a systematically renewed Environmental Impact Assessment. Certainly, however, the Algerians have been working again for months on the Galsi project. The intention to take back that strategic project both at the western level, transferring at least 10/12 billion cubic meters a year between Sardinia and Europe, is consolidated, however, with an even more ambitious project which could see the Sardinia protagonist of an energetic environmental plan of extraordinary importance. The theme was the subject of a private meeting between the Algerian Minister of Energy and Mines, Mohamed Arkab, and the European Commissioner for Energy, Kadri Simson. In the comparison, it was requested to reactivate the Galsi Algeria-Italy pipeline project which passes through the island of Sardinia, not only to transport gas but to be ready to transport green hydrogen from the Algerian Sahara to Europe. According to confirmed information in our possession, the Galsi pipeline would maintain its already approved structure and routes intact, but would benefit from safety standards never implemented in European pipelines. It would therefore be the most innovative and secure energy infrastructure ever built in the world. The project would allow Sardinia to be the first European hydrogen region. A very modern underground pipeline that can also be powered by the Sardinian wind and sun, managed by the Sardinians, transformed into the most ecological of the energies of the future, hydrogen. “The New Galsi”.