Algeria’s contribution to the Mattei Plan, promised for one billion euros, will help make Italy an energy hub, a real “bridge” between Europe and Africa. She said it today ad “Nova Agency” the Deputy Minister of the Environment and Energy Security, Vannia Gava, on the sidelines of the seventh summit of heads of state and government of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) in Algiers. This organization was established in Tehran in 2001 and currently includes 20 countries, of which 13 are members (Algeria, Bolivia, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Iran, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Russia, Trinidad and Tobago, United Arab Emirates, Venezuela and Mauritania) and seven observers (Angola, Azerbaijan, Iraq, Malaysia, Mozambique, Peru and Senegal). Italy is the only Western country to have been invited as a guest of honor at the summit of the Forum of Gas Exporting Countries. “Italy is fundamental in the energy challenge. We couldn’t miss this appointment”, underlined Deputy Minister Gava.
Algiers’ contribution to Mattei plan is “aimed at financing joint Italian-Algerian cooperation projects in African countries, in particular in the Sahel area”, added the deputy minister, highlighting that “as regards Italy’s role, we are absolutely a strategic bridge with the ‘European Union”. “We are, for example, through Transmed, which makes us an energy hub and leads to Austria and Germany. And we intend to continue in this direction,” explained Gava. The Transmed gas pipeline was built with the primary function of transporting gas of Algerian origin to Italy. These are two 48-inch lines, the first operational since 1983 and the second since 1994, which extend across Tunisian territory for approximately 370 kilometres, from the locality of Oued es Saf-Saf, on the border between Tunisia and Algeria, up to coasts of the Mediterranean Sea, in the Cap Bon region.
