The United States have always expressed interests in increasing investments in the Italian energy sector cooperating with companies already operating in the Italian market.
With this in mind a delegation of the US Department of Energy headed by Vincent De Vito, Under-Secretary of International Affairs, paid a visit in Rome on the 28th of July 2004.
As part of the visit the "U.S.-Italy Joint Informal Workshop on Energy Infrastructure Investments in Italy" was held at the Ministry for Productive Activities and it was attended by Giovanni Dell'Elce, Under-Secretary of the Ministry for Productive Activities.
This workshop has been the first of a number of seminars to be organised both in Italy and in the United States to improve the exchange of information, to identify opportunities for cooperation and to facilitate the development of new projects between American and Italian companies. The first workshop was focused on the upstream sector, natural gas and electricity market. The following workshop will be held in Washington.
Sergio Garribba, Director Energy and Mineral Resources, outlined the current situation in the Italian energy sector stressing that the domestic strategy is focused on safer supply and market reforms. The total investments required to realise the needed infrastructures are about 10-15 billion euros in the 2005-2008 period. Another 15 billion euros will be needed in the following four years. As far as oil supply is concerned, Italy is strongly dependent from imports but it has great potential to increase the domestic production of oil and gas. To stop the current decline in production the Government is setting up a strategy to favour exploration and production of hydrocarbons in Italy and to increase the involvement of regional and local Authorities in guaranteeing the energy security of the country. The Government has also made clear that the administrative process to obtain licences and authorisations will be simplified.
Andrea Ketoff, Assomineraria's General Manager, discussed results and perspectives for the Exploration and Production sector in Italy.
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