Alberto Clò is an economist from a solid Prodian area. Born in Bologna in 1947, he was a lifelong professor, held several boards of directors (Eni, Finmeccanica, Atlantia, the Gedi Group, etc.), was Minister for Industry in the Dini government and has been in charge of the Energia magazine since 1984, founded in 1980 with Prodi of all people. This abridged version of his CV, which outlines a man who is certainly no stranger to Italian power, explains how surprisingly harsh is the editorial published two days ago by Clò in Energia: “Gas: everything (not) goes well Madama the Marquise “. Proceedings: “While the resigning minister of the Cingolani government continues to reassure public opinion and families in particular that this winter can heat comfortably with gas as long as they can pay for it, reports from the markets are accurate and profoundly contradictory”.
Professor, what’s going on?
I’m surprised because they are not telling the truth.
And what would be the truth?
In the meantime, as Cingolani says, we are no better than the others. Secondly, it cannot be ruled out that the coming winter will be very difficult on the gas side. It follows that we should prepare for the worst, in the sense that we should have drawn up a rationing plan. And again: we have very high prices, even higher than in other countries. The fall blow will be very strong.
And instead…
And yet Cingolani goes around saying “we’re good,” and he does, while Arera, the energy agency, talks about gas supply problems and prices that will double in October. The institutions cannot say one thing with the right hand and the other with the left hand. It’s certainly not terrorism, but these assurances are unfounded and denied by regulators.
how do you explain it
I can’t explain it, especially since I don’t think Cingolani is looking for votes right now…
The dependence on Moscow is not Cingolani’s fault.
Of course not. A book of mine entitled Russian Gas Blackmail is forthcoming: if getting supplies from Moscow was inevitable, it wasn’t inevitable to do so on the scale to make it the privileged partner. This is a political decision and many have made it, some for money. Of course I will mention first and last names in the book. Europe, too, has been turning away for the past twenty years, but we’ve seen multiple times that Putin wasn’t the biscuit we were sold.
The government tried to look for alternative sources.
Something has happened with regard to dependence on Russia. It is true that Algeria and other countries have given more. But the situation is so complicated that, for example, the decision to entrust Snam with the necessary restocking ended up driving prices up. And so on the one hand we contribute to the price increase and on the other hand we say “price cap, price cap” without ever explaining what this blessed price cap is.
However, Europe has launched an austerity plan.
The EU is not doing it right: let’s make a savings plan of 15% … or rather 7% … voluntarily. Platts Europe Gas Daily wrote that Europe risks running out of gas in winter and given that one can navigate on sight, one doesn’t seem to realize it, while the German government said: We need to cut consumption by 20%. , one-fifth of the total.
Prices are also a big problem. Almost a de facto rationing.
This winter, the blow to families will be enormous. We’ve already spent about 35 billion to lower the bills, how much does the government have to put on the table now? Because obviously he has to do it, at least for the weaker groups, even if it’s an involuntary surge in consumption. As for the pandemic, I believe it is necessary to resort to the sense of responsibility of the Italians: also because you go out like air conditioners or the calm does not seem to have worked …
How do you explain prices that are so off the scale and almost never seen?
Prices are exploding for a specific reason: there is no supply.
The Russian.
All embargo measures come back like a boomerang. It is true that oil prices are fortunately falling now, but only temporarily, I fear.
What is the bottom line?
But if this is the case, what calms you down? The truth must be told.