Eni’s Egypt gas find to contribute to European energy security

The European Commissioner for Energy and Climate Action, Miguel Arias Cañete, met on Wednesday Eni’s CEO, Claudio Descalzi, in Rome to discuss the status of the negotiations preceding the COP21 climate summit in Paris in December. 

During the meeting, Descalzi repeated the request for a global carbon pricing mechanism to address concerns related to the increased use of coal in power generation and to ensure a level playing field between the EU and other major industrialised countries.

To remind, Eni was one of the six European major oil and gas companies, (other five being BG Group, BP, Shell, Statoil, and Total, later joined by Repsol) that had called world governments and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to introduce carbon pricing systems.

During the Wednesday’s meeting, Descalzi and Cañete also underlined that Eni’s super giant gas discovery offshore Egypt, along with other discoveries made in recent years offshore Israel and Cyprus, would allow the East Mediterranean gas hub to contribute significantly to European energy security, enhance the liquidity of the gas market and improve the competitiveness of gas vis-à-vis coal.

Descalzi and Cañete stressed the need to fully interconnect the European gas market in order to make best use of alternative future supplies. Descalzi welcomed Commissioner Cañete’s resolve in addressing this issue.

Worth noting, the Italian company’s boss met last week with Cypriot President Nikos Anastasiades, when it was also said that the Mediterranean area could be of crucial strategic importance as a gas hub for the whole region.

[mappress mapid=”2598″]