It is in the harbor. Away from Portovesme. Ten thousand kilometers as the crow flies from that chimney that towers over one of the most devastated industrial areas in Europe like a leaning tower. The name says it all: Golar Arctic. Golar stands for Golar LNG Limited, a company registered in the deep tax havens of Bermuda, a stone's throw from the United States. By profession Tor Olav Trøim, Norwegian, president of the company and Karl Fredrik Staubo, managing director, also Norwegian, rent, sell, transport, store and regasify gas. Arctic, on the other hand, is the proper name of a mega gas carrier, with an arctic call, destined, in the dreams of Draghi & Snam, to sail the oceans to rest on the east bank of the industrial port of Portovesme, which has always been a crossroads of coal, bauxite and alumina.
At anchor in Malaysia
Last night, however, the Golar Arctic was stationed on the other side of the world, in front of the devastated coasts of Sumatra, close to Kuala Lumpur, in front of the port of Malacca in Malaysia. According to the plans of those who bought it, Snam spa, that giant of the seas had to be transformed into an FSRU, or a floating storage and regasification unit. For the gigantic figure of 269 million euros, the company dedicated to state gas, Snam, grabbed it even before the Draghi government scored the coup with which it denied Sardinia rights and serious infrastructures in energy theme. As if someone had warned them before, Snam's managers made a very expensive blitz to buy that ship to be transformed into a regasification plant to be placed on the outskirts of southern Sardinia.
Gas alembic
A sort of "gas still" to provide some energy to the industrial area of Portovesme, destined to remain in the dark after the wicked idea of turning off, without a credible alternative plan, the Enel coal plant, without converting it to gas as was happening for all the others, before the war, throughout Italy. The plan on which to found that subspecies of underdevelopment methanization put in black and white by the Draghi government, now, however, risks being blatantly beached in the shallows of the port of Sulcis. What we are about to tell you is a dramatically serious story that could, however, easily be counted in the state "cabaret". After making the methane pipeline project between Algeria-Sardinia-Europe fail between underground games and Eni's interests and having wrecked a backbone capable of supplying methane to the entire island, the Government, at Snam's proposal, had thought of solving everything by placing a gas carrier converted to regasification in the east quay of Portovesme, the one opposite the ferries to San Pietro.
We want the East
The designers of the Sardinian landing of the Golar Arctic went to that industrial land and chose it without delay: «We want the east one». Brand new, never used. Uncut, as if waiting for the arrival of Snam and its mega ship. Too bad they have not come to terms with a detail, not insignificant: the depths of the seabed of that body of water, placed right in front of the ferries that shuttle every hour, at best, between Portoscuso and Carloforte. When you arrive at the place you are greeted by a rusty gate from the passing of time. That's where you realize that the quay is, theoretically, ready for use. Since 2005 those unused bollards await the tops of mighty ships capable of giving a minimum of future to a port marked by the industrial collapse of the last 20 years. There, in reality, at most, you can moor a motorboat, nothing more invasive. The submarine hill that prohibits a "serious" ship from approaching is marked in the depths that put that dock out of use, no ifs and buts. The Dravo SA company left it like this in 2005, without carrying out the excavation of that stretch of sea enclosed in the port of Sulcis. Basically there is the wharf-quay where to dock, but it is a pity that no ship can be approached.
Prohibited backdrops
The seabed is forbidden, the bathymetry where the Snam lords would have liked to place their gas tanker-regasifier are inaccessible. No ship could ever get close without running aground in the middle of the port, given that in the middle of that stretch of water stands a veritable mountain of debris, of toxic and harmful pollution. To be more precise, it would be like slipping into a submerged hill system, with the deepest point at minus 11.50 meters above sea level and the highest at minus three meters. Too bad that those underwater roller coasters from just two to three meters deep are positioned right in the center of the port making it impossible for any ship to even get close to that quay.
Underwater slalom prohibited
Assuming a slalom in port for a ship, such as the Golar Arctic, 291 meters long, is simply insane. The summary is thrilling: that 269 million euro ship cannot enter that port. Stuff that if you tell it you risk compulsory health treatment. And, instead, it's all dramatically true. Of course, someone may have thought that that stretch of sea, sooner or later, will be emptied. In theory it can be done. The operation is technically called "escavo". Before considering the emptying of the seabed a child's play, perhaps, however, it would have been better to read the cards, study the problems and avoid planning the energy future of a region of one and a half million inhabitants with such superficiality.
Written history
It would not have been difficult to reconstruct the history of that port and foresee the failure of that sort of “poor” methanization that the Draghi government was imposing on Sardinia. The first chapter dates back to 2005. The company builds the east quay, but goes to war with the contracting station before starting the excavation of the port. It ends with a legal dispute, still on the high seas. We are in 2012. With the elusive and in many ways bankruptcy «Piano Sulcis» an additional 13 million euros are allocated to empty the seabed of earth and mud. The opening of the envelopes is set for 10 am on 18 July 2016. The contract has now entered its seventh year and there is no trace of that work. The Vittadello company from Limena, in the province of Padua, wins. Not exactly the latest arrival, on the contrary. The exchanges of letters to the sound of lawyers are an anthology of public works, complete with "reservations" that certainly do not allow a glimpse of the rainbow on the violated proscenium of this strip of Sardinia. 683 days of work were planned. 2,200 have passed and the seabed is still the same, perhaps worsened. The rumors of the Portovesme industrial consortium speak in no uncertain terms about the contract being terminated. Therefore, the Golar Arctic in that port cannot enter in any way. The times envisaged by Snam for the commissioning of the regasification plant are pure fantasies, given that the plan speaks of 2022-2023. If it were ever possible to unlock the excavation of that first lot, it would arise immediately after the theme of the weather and sea conditions for the entry into the port of the gas carriers, those destined to supply the regasification terminal. Also in this case a minimum necessary depth of 11.96 meters is required, a depth that breaks with the reality of the facts: the minimum bathymetry calculated even after a hypothetical post-dredging would be 11.50 meters.
Theoretical usability
It is no coincidence that in the Snam study the issue is addressed with circumspect and not exactly convincing words, defining port usability as "theoretical". Certainly, with this crime, the plan of Draghi and Snam is destined to suffer a very heavy setback: even using optimistic parameters, that intervention, if it were ever authorized, would have the possibility, perhaps, of being carried out not before 2028-2029. With time expired, with Sardinia no more energy, given that the plan of Cingolani & company provides for the closure of the two Sardinian thermal power stations by 2025. It remains to be understood what will happen to the Golar Arctic, which cost the beauty of 269 million euros, so much large and useless, given that in that Sulcis port he will not be able to enter.
Drop the mask
On this story, however, there are many disturbing shadows and backstories concerning a project imposed from above, ignoring rules, regulatory plans and even the environmental disaster that lurks in that area. A nefarious plan that is turning out to be more and more confused and unworkable day after day, indelibly unmasking the contents of that decree that the Draghi government imposed on Sardinia to transform it shamelessly into an energy colony of Italy. Now you risk going straight to an endless shoal of poisons. Poisons in all senses.
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