Italy’s African energy plan gathers momentum
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Italy’s African energy plan gathers momentum
As part of the Mattei Plan Italy is ramping up its energy investments in Africa.
Leon Louw founder of WhyAfrica and editor of the WhyAfrica magazine reporting from Italy
Interest in Africa is growing in Italy as Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s Mattei Plan kicks into gear.
Italy is looking towards North Africa, Angola, Nigeria and South Africa to boost its own energy production which has been under pressure since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Prior to Russian isolation, Italy imported most of its fossil fuels from Russia. Algeria has played an increasingly important role since the reduction of Russian gas to Italy.
South African coal
South African coal exports from the Richards Bay Coal Terminal to Europe, including Italy, has surged since 2022. In 2023 South Africa exported more than USD515-million worth of coal to Italy, and that is expected to increase significantly over the next few years.
Currently Italy operates six coal-fired power plants with an operating capacity of 6000MW. It is highly unlikely that the country will make the deadline of closing five of these plants before the end of this year, and coal should be in the mix until the end of 2030.
Oil and gas imports expected to increase
Meanwhile, oil and gas imports from Algeria, Libya, Nigeria, Angola and Egypt are expected to increase under the Mattei Plan.
Earlier this week Italian group Eni announced they the company will invest more than 24-billion Euros (USD26.24-billion) in Algeria, Libya and Egypt over the next four years.
According to Eni’s Chief Executive Officer Claudio Descalzi these three countries can play an important role as hydrocarbon suppliers for Europe, but need outside investment to expand their energy production and meet rising domestic demand.
“Internal demand in these countries is increasing at about 7-8% every year, this means they also need gas, and they need investment,” he told an energy conference in the Italian city of Ravenna on Wednesday.
Descalzi said that Eni will invest more than 8-billion Euros each in Algeria and Libya, and about the same in Egypt over the next four years.
Prime Minister Meloni recently announced the expansion of the Mattei plan to include Angola, Ghana, Mauritania, Tanzania and Senegal.
Continue following WhyAfrica this month as we dig a little bit deeper to determine the impact of Melony’s African plan as we start building and cementing future Italian and African foundations.
Read more about Africa and Italian relations and the much talked about Mattei Plan for Africa on the WhyAfrica website.
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Italy’s African energy plan gathers momentum
