PHOTO | VIDEO | The Ravenna regasification plant in sight:it comes on from March 31st

Today the inspection of the construction site with the Minister of the Environment Pichetto Fratin and the CEO of Snam Stefano Venier

RAVENNA – From 31 March 2025 Ravenna will have its own regasification terminal five billion cubic meters per year. Thus Italy will be able to reach the same volumes that it imported from Russia before the invasion of Ukraine.In fact, work on Snam's offshore plant is proceeding quickly, which will bring the national regasification capacity to 28 billion cubic meters per year, corresponding to approximately 45% of Italian gas demand in 2023, the equivalent of that imported from Moscow in 2021.The Bw Singapore ship, purchased by Snam in July 2022, will become operational in the first quarter of 2025, and positioned 8.5 kilometers from Punta Marina, a hamlet of Ravenna. The infrastructure works will be completed at the end of December, before moving on to testing, and, after the "definitive safety report", the actual entry into operation from the end of March.“Don't write from April 1st, otherwise they won't take us seriously - jokes Snam CEO Stefano Venier - let's say it will start from March 31st”.

The point about the timetable of the work was made this morning, during the visit of the Minister of the Environment and Energy Security Gilberto Pichetto Fratin at the construction site for the construction of the mooring platform to which Snam's Bw Singapore regasifier will be anchored, at the Rossetti Marino yard in Marina di Ravenna, accompanied for the occasion by the CEO of Snam Stefano Venier and the mayor of Ravenna Michele De Pascale .The progress of the works "is absolutely in line with the programmes - explains Venier - the works on land have been over 90% completed, for those at sea we are over 50%.In the next three-four months we will have an acceleration", but in any case the CEO expects to "respect the end-of-year deadline as the completion date of the works".

Gas, among all fossils, is the least harmful and will be one of the accompanying carriers until 2050, according to our forecast, as an element that then unites geothermal, hydroelectric, photovoltaic, wind and at the same time also a part of nuclear - underlines Minister Pichetto Fratin - in seven-eight months a guarantee of 5 billion cubic meters will be in operation which becomes a guarantee for Italians, because with this regasifier we reach approximately half of national consumption". The regasification ship, which cost 500 million euros, is currently under construction in Dubai for the adjustments necessary for its future location off the coast of Ravenna.Furthermore, since February 2024, work has been underway for the dismantling of the Petra platform, a phase which was followed, from mid-May, by the installation of the structures of the new mooring platform, approximately 440 meters long and weighing over 14,000 tons.Finally, the breakwater will be built by 2026, necessary to repair the work from marine weather conditions, which will be approximately 900 meters long, currently in the tender phase for an estimated value of approximately 300 million euros.Another 300 million euros are then estimated for the orders of the 240 suppliers involved, of which 80 are from the Ravenna area or Emilia-Romagna.

Overall, the work will cost more than one billion euros. “It is part of the process to secure the country's energy supply - explains Venier - this, together with the Piombino ship, is a work that serves to recreate that situation of resilience and diversification in sources which allows us not to depend more on a single country for over 40% of our consumption, but be able to diversify and receive gas from every part of the world".

The mayor of Ravenna Michele de Pascale is also satisfied, focusing not only on the positive effects for the territory, but also on the mitigation works connected to the construction of the plant.“The Ravenna companies that are working on this project are international excellences - highlights the mayor - and then we shared 20 million euros in compensation within the procedure”.Among these, a renaturalization work of 100 hectares, "the largest in the history of Ravenna, the project of which will be approved by the end of the year and delivered to the city next spring", and then "the LED transformation of the entire public lighting of the city and also the regeneration of important parts of our coastline".In short, concludes de Pascale, “Ravenna was ready”.Every year then Snam will incur costs of 30 million euros (maritime services, O&M activities, weather services and monitoring), which in turn will fuel the local economy.From an employment point of view, 800 resources are involved in the project, but at the peak of activity there will be more than 1,200 people at work.