According to the Italian newspaper La Gazzeta di Mezzogiorno, Chairman of the Regional Council of Puglia, Michele Emiliano, has proposed in Rome a project to build an offshore, floating LNG import terminal and regasification plant that will process gas for the Italian market and Western Balkan markets.
The import terminal would be built only 5 km off the Albanian coast and process between 4 to 8 billion cubic meters of gas per year.
The project of the Italian company Gruppo Falcione, called Eagle LNG, will process liquid gas from Qatar and the US, turning it from liquid into gaseous state, and furnish Italy through a 110 km submarine pipeline from Albania to Brindisi. A second phase of the project would connect the gas rig with other Western Balkan countries.
According to the project, the would lower the dependency of Italy and the Western Balkans on gas imports from Russia, which, together with North Africa, provides about 80% of the gas in the regional market.
Work is expected to start in 2018 and finish in 2020. According to the company’s website, the project was initiated in 2005 and in 2008 then Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha signed an agreement for its construction.
Following the agreement, part of the regasification plant’s output will furnish the Thermo Power Plant in Vlora (which is currently not in use) and the industrial facilities in the “future” Industrial Park of Elbasan.
