“With gas at 100 euros per MWh, the industry cannot cope; immediate measures are needed”
Gas Intesive sounds the alarm: costs are unsustainable for the Italian manufacturing sector. Chairman Chiarini: “Production, investment and jobs are at risk”
Gas prices are rising, as are companies’ concerns. With the benchmark price on the Amsterdam TTF breaking through the 100-euro-per-MWh mark this week (it retreated slightly on 29 October, with the December futures contract closing at 99 euros), large consumers face the prospect of rising costs. Gas Intensive – the consortium established by eight Confindustria associations representing the paper, ceramics, foundries, gypsum and lime, mortar, ferrous and non-ferrous metals, and glass sectors – has issued a warning: ‘Market tensions are fuelling fears of high prices throughout the winter season: levels which, if prolonged, are unsustainable for gas-intensive manufacturing sectors.’
Aldo Chiarini, chairman of Gas Intensive, has spoken out on behalf of a sector in which energy bills are placing a particularly heavy burden on operations and profit margins: “We understand the uncertainties of the international context and the constraints on public finances, but urgent action is needed: no business can sustain costs of this magnitude in the long term without compromising production, investment and employment,” he emphasised.
In the background lies the budget: “The funds allocated in the Budget Act for the development of biomethane are welcome, but these are long-term measures that do not resolve the immediate price crisis. We need decisive measures for large gas consumers, just as we are seeing for the electricity sector,” states the Gas Intensive press release.
Among the measures designed to provide relief from energy costs for businesses is the liquidity service (to bridge the gap between the Italia PSV gas price and the Dutch TTF price), which has long been requested and awaited: it has recently been given a regulatory framework, but will only become fully operational from the start of the next thermal year, on 1 October 2027, following an initial trial phase. It cannot, therefore, provide a solution to the current emergency.
The gas-intensive industry therefore identifies other priorities, such as establishing appropriate conditions for interruptibility (the interruption of gas off-take by a large consumer), ‘with remuneration proportionate to the risk, similar to last year’s, and capable of engaging businesses, as is necessary at this stage. Only in this way can the system rely on genuine preventive safeguards to face a winter that is shaping up to be even more critical’, the statement reads.
