Mario Draghi Announces Natural Gas Targets for 2024

Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi stated that they aim to end their dependence on Russia for natural gas. The Prime Minister stated that by the fall of 2024, they will be completely free from dependence on natural gas from Russia.

Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi evaluated the energy problem that increased with the Ukraine-Russia war at an event he attended. Prime Minister Mario Draghi underlined that if Italy's new natural gas supply projects are completed on schedule, Italy will become completely independent from Russian gas by the fall of 2024. "This is a fundamental objective for national security because Russia is not afraid to use gas as a geopolitical weapon against Ukraine and its European allies." Draghi noted that it is incompatible for Europe to talk about its sovereignty rights on the one hand and to meet almost half of its natural gas needs from an imperialist country on the other. Noting that this mistake should never be repeated, Draghi said, "We have made new agreements to increase supply from Algeria to Azerbaijan. Last year, 40 percent of our natural gas imports came from Russia. This year it has been halved on average. We have accelerated the development of renewable energy sources. Renewable energy demand in the first 8 months of 2022 is almost 4 times that of 2020 and 2021 combined." The Italian Prime Minister noted that Italy's gas stocks are currently at 80 percent and they aim to increase them to 90 percent by October, but that maintaining gas supply volumes will not prevent costs from rising, which have reached unsustainable levels.