A visit to the Livorno regasification ship, to celebrate the work of naval repairs in the port of Genoa, but above all to start become familiar with something similar to what should arrive off the coast of Vado Ligure by the end of 2026. According to what the Dire agency reports, the president of the Liguria Region and commissioner for the installation of the Golar Tundra in the Savona sea, Giovanni Toti, carried out an inspection of the ship this morning Olt Offshore Fsru “Tuscany”, moored in the former Genoese superbasin, where a phase of extraordinary maintenance by San Giorgio del Porto began in recent days. The works will continue in June in Marseille, due to the large dimensions of the ship not compatible with the Genoese docks. The ship is aesthetically and technologically very different from the one that will arrive in the Savona area, but the purposes are the same.
«This plant – he said Elio Ruggeripresident of Olt and CEO of Snam Fsru – is the first Fsru in the world, a ship with Moss containment technology, with cylindrical spheres, which are not present on the Golar Tundra because the deck of the ship is completely flat and has much more simplified and a much smaller visual and environmental impact.
«It is important that this ship is here – Toti pointed out – because it is work for Genoa and for our repairs and because this ship has been active since 2012 in the Tuscan archipelago, one of the most protected areas of our marine ecosystem, without ever having produced any type of disservice, damage or fear. This ship produces approximately four billion cubic meters of gas, the Golar Tundra will be able to produce more. It is important that the country equips itself with these energy infrastructures, which make it safe, protecting families and businesses from reckless increases in bills.”
«Thanks to the redundancy of opportunities to import LNG, with the Piombino ship which entered into service in July last year – added Ruggeri – we are able to replace the volumes that should have arrived on this ship, in this period of stoppage ».
For the disputed move from Piombino to Vado Ligure, Dire specifies, however, the time is not yet ripe. Snam has delivered to the Ministry of the Environment all the additions requested as part of the Via Nazionale procedure. The deadline for submitting final observations expires in the next few days. Snam’s hope is that the work of the Via commission can be completed by the summer, so that the authorizations for the construction of the plant can be completed in the autumn. However, the times could be much longer because, as is known, the members of the commission must be renewed. The calendar, however, for now remains the one initially planned: «We have the authorization to remain in Piombino until July 2026 – recalls Ruggeri – then, the Golar Tundra will have to go to the construction site to assemble a turret, at which point it will be able to go to Vado for mooring and connection operations: we think it will arrive by the end of 2026. Once the authorizations arrive, the preparatory works will be able to start, which will be done in such a way as not to impact the summer seasons”.
Toti hopes that «from the National Road, in a reasonable but necessary time, a ruling will emerge that definitively dispels all those malicious voices that poison a debate that has no sense in existing. I hope that the representatives of the institutions, once they have read the positive opinions, will take note of them with the loyal collaboration that Italian laws attribute to public officials”.
The Livorno ship, which has an import capacity of 3.5 billion out of the 60 billion annual national gas demand, extraordinary maintenance will allow it to extend its useful life from 2033 to 2043. Once the work in Marseilles has been completed, the ship will return to Tuscany by October, to be ready for the winter. The overall investment in maintenance works amounts to 80 million.
