Why the Americans are calling for a halt to the sale of the Priolo refinery

This agreement does not have to be done. The fate of largest Italian refinery it’s still hanging. It had been achieved earlier this year an agreement for the sale of the Isab plant in Priolo Gargallo controlled by the Russians Lukoilwhich is found in the province of Syracuse, at Goi Energya company that is part of the private equity fund Argus, active in the energy field and based in Cyprus. In the operation is also involved Transfigure, one of the largest commodity trading companies in the world. However, the Meloni government could block the operation, resorting to the instrument of golden power, if it deems it harmful to national interests and security. The Minister of Economic Development and Made in Italy, Adolfo Urso, declared that “the procedure has in any case been activated, we will express ourselves at the end of the investigation”. Although the managers of Goi Energy have already met the minister himself, the deputy minister Valentino Valentini and the president of the Sicily region Renato Schifani, Urso has put their hands forward: “All those who were interested in purchasing the plant – he added – have met the guarantee committee that we have set up and who explained to them what the government’s intention was regarding the provisions of the golden power. Obviously the negotiations on the sale were to be done with the property, certainly not with us”.

What happens? According to Republic, a second game is being played on the refinery which is not only economic but also geopolitical. The Americans are very worried about the sale to a Cypriot company, a country that has always been a land of raids for investments by financial giants and Russian banksof a plant located just thirty kilometers from the most important US military base in the Mediterranean, Sigonella”.

The refinery, which alone refines twenty percent of the crude oil arriving in Italy and is a fundamental piece of a hub that employs 12,000 people directly and indirectly. is in fact still of owned by the Russian oil company Lukoil (the sales process has not yet concluded). With the invasion of Ukraine and subsequent sanctions, Lukoil – although not directly sanctioned – could not get credit necessary for the purchase of non-Russian oil due to the banks’ fear of secondary sanctions even outside the EU; but it could not even get supplies of Russian crude oil, given the European ban. To avoid the closure of Isab di Priolo. there were two options: nationalize the plant or sell it to a non-Moscow private individual. The transfer from Lukoil to Goi Energy should be completed by the end of March, but requires the approval of the Italian government, which considers the refinery to be a strategic infrastructure.

U.S. skepticism could be fueled by US’s role in the deal Transfigure, who prior to the invasion of Ukraine was a lead trader of crude and refined products for Russia’s state oil company Rosneft. It will be the company based in Geneva that will take on the task of supply capital and crude oil to ISAB once the Sicilian refinery has passed under Cypriot control. It must be said, however, that with the start of the war Trafigura immediately distanced itself from Moscow, for example by selling its share (of 6 billion euros) in the Vostok Oil project, managed by Rosneft in the Russian Arctic , share purchased just a year and a half earlier.