Albania today took an important step toward strengthening national energy security and guaranteeing the strategic reserve in the hydrocarbons sector, with the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding between the Albanian Government and the prestigious Italian company Eni S.p.A.
The agreement provides for the carrying out of a feasibility study for the creation of national capacities for the supply and storage of oil and gas products, aiming to guarantee supply security, increase the country’s economic sustainability, and strengthen Albania’s role as an important energy hub in the region. This strategic partnership with one of the world’s largest energy companies represents a long-term investment in the security, development, and competitiveness of the Albanian economy.
At the ceremony organised on this occasion, Prime Minister Edi Rama also took part, who assessed this partnership as an important moment for the country’s energy and economic future.
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Prime Minister Edi Rama: I would like to recall that some time ago, at the beginning of this new mandate, we shared with the public the ambition to create a new force in the hydrocarbons market, a modern and dynamic operator, which would, in a way, also play the role of a market regulator in function of better opportunities for consumers. But along the way, a very significant crisis emerged, which once again brought into discussion the issue of reserves; the strategic oil reserves, which we of course have regulated with a legal framework, and with the new law advanced by the Ministry of Infrastructure and Energy, it becomes a complete framework.
But on the other hand, bearing in mind precisely this extraordinary special relationship with Italy, and within the framework of this relationship, considering this close cooperation with Eni S.p.A., which is a global giant in the hydrocarbons market, but at the same time also a major power that has had its presence in Albania since 2019, we approached ENI. As the Chief Executive Officer of ENI also said, who, truth be told, is the most stable figure in the history of Italian politics and public life after the fall of the Berlin Wall, it is also the personal relationship that gives us the possibility to have faster communication. So, we spoke about a strategic cooperation with ENI in the creation of this new operator, which will also undertake the guarantee of the strategic oil reserve, meaning that through this partnership, Albania will no longer have any doubt in the face of whatever crisis may come regarding the strategic reserve.
We have started a dialogue that has brought us to the signing of this first step and to the formalisation of the process for creating the company. The company, as ENI’s Chief Executive said, is something new, but on the other hand, considering that on one side we have ENI’s very solid foundation, and on the other side the knowledge of ENI’s management team, the company has the opportunity to become a new model of approach to the market, not only national, but also regional, of hydrocarbons, and to be another company in the line of those companies that we are creating with the participation of the Albanian state; a company which, thanks to the knowledge that ENI will bring into management, will also be active in the international oil trade. Therefore, today we are very encouraged and very grateful for the willingness shown by a global giant such as ENI to cooperate and to create this “start-up,” let’s say, in the hydrocarbons field together with us.
I have absolute trust in the intuition and experience of the Chief Executive, a trust which, rarely not to say uniquely, is shared by all Italian politicians, because to bring them together on one issue or for one person is extraordinarily difficult. Italians have not even managed to elect the President by consensus for many years. But ENI’s Chief Executive has their consensus. So I am very grateful, dear Claudio.
We are truly very honoured and grateful for your presence, for your support, and if afterwards you publicly and openly show everyone that you are also a friend of mine, this is truly a very important moment in the history of my life.
With the signing of this memorandum, we open the way to realize what the Chief Executive said, that before August enters, prima che entri l’agosto, we return here to declare the registration of this new company, which will be a very important ally of the Albanian public and a very important guarantor of tomorrow for Albania and for our sustainability, thanks to this close strategic partnership with Italy and this cooperation with the excellence of excellences of the Italian economy, which is ENI.
