As the head of one of the leading energy companies that don’t invest in Africa only on paper, in an interview published last Friday, the chief executive of the Italian energy company, Eni, Claudio Descalzi, advised Europe to look to Africa for a “south-north” energy axis that would deliver gas from Africa to the EU.

Speaking on energy resources in Africa to Financial Times, Descalzi said: “We don’t have energy, they have energy. We have a big industry, they have to develop it . . . There is a strong complementarity.”

Eni is a key player in several African countries and has signed agreements to boost gas supply from Africa to Europe since the start of the Russian war with Ukraine and the slump in Russia’s gas deliveries via pipeline.

Descalzi and Toufik Hakkar, president of Algeria’s state energy company Sonatrach, signed an agreement in April 2022, less than two months after Putin ordered Russian troops into Ukraine, allowing Eni to increase the amounts of gas imported through the TransMed/Enrico Mattei pipeline as part of a long-term gas supply contract in place with Sonatrach.

Additionally, Eni announced the beginning of production from two gas fields under the new Berkine South contract in Algeria in October of last year, with volumes destined for the European market. The first LNG shipment from the Coral gas field, which is located in the extremely deep Rovuma Basin offshore of Mozambique, was announced by Eni the following month.

Eni announced in October that its Global Gas & LNG Portfolio had performed “excellently,” with third-quarter core earnings and net profit exceeding analyst expectations.