Hassi R'Mel is one of the ten new capitals of the world, according to the suggestive atlas prepared by Jordi Torrent, head of strategy for the port of Barcelona, which Ramon Aymerich recently told us about in La Vanguardia. In that village located about 550 kilometers south of Algiers is one of the largest natural gas fields in the world.
Two arms come out of Hassi R'Mel. One is called Pere Duran Farell, and the other, Enrico Mattei. A Catalan arm and an Italian arm. At the end of the 1990s, President Abdelaziz Bouteflika wanted to name the two main Algerian gas pipelines with affection – and with intention. It was an exclusively local gesture, since both pipes appear with other names on international maps. The gas pipeline that crosses the Strait of Gibraltar after a long journey through Moroccan territory –the tube was closed last November by decision of Algeria– is better known as Maghreb Europe. And the pipeline that emerges in Sicily after passing through Tunisia is called TransMed in international standards. Bouteflika wanted that, in his territory, both pipelines bear the name of two great friends of Algerian independence, two captains of industry whose biographies intersect in Hassi R'Mel.
Enrico Mattei, born in the Italian region of the Marches in 1906, was 15 years older than Pere Duran, born in Caldes de Montbui in 1921, in a Catholic family closely linked to Unió Democràtica that had to take refuge in anonymity of Barcelona at the outbreak of the Civil War. Two men of Christian Democrat stock. Like many other young Italians, Mattei succumbed to the fever of fascism until defeats in the war led to disillusionment. In 1943 he was already part of a partisan group in northern Italy with the rank of commander. He was a white partisan in a resistance led mainly by the communists. A man of strong character and great leadership skills, Mattei was one of the Catholic fighters who saved the honor of the Christian Democracy in the face of the final radicalization of fascism.
After the war, he was commissioned to dismantle Agip, the state oil company created during the Mussolini dictatorship, but the discovery of a large methane deposit in the Po basin made him change his mind. 1947. Hard years. The bicycle thief and Ana Magnani performing Riso amaro. Mattei joined neorealism dreaming of a strong state hydrocarbons monopoly from which to direct Italy's economic takeoff. He always wanted to be a commander.
The engineer Pere Duran also imagined futures, but he did not work for the State. He started in the Banco Urquijo study service and would soon take over the management of an old Catalan gas company. A peripheral. A peripheral well connected to the world. When in 1951 General De Gaulle promoted the Association Euroafricaine Minière et Industrielle (Assemi) to promote the hydrocarbons discovered in Algeria, the French Government invited other European countries to form part of the platform. A large gas pipeline is planned from Hassi R'Mel to Essen, in the Rhine basin, passing through the Spanish Mediterranean coast. The purpose is to slow down Algerian independence.
In Paris they do not want to officially invite the Franco regime and seek Spanish technical representation. Banco Urquijo proposes the name of a Barcelona engineer employed by Catalana de Gas. Through the Gaullist window of opportunity, Pere Duran will discover a world. And to the Algerian independence fighters.
Mattei, meanwhile, sets out to conquer the world. Agip has been encompassed by the powerful National Hydrocarbons Entity (ENI), which the former partisan commander has turned into a power within power in Italy. He deals with the North American oil companies, gets drilling licenses in many countries and senses that Algeria will soon be independent, so he begins to openly support the National Liberation Front. He even has a newspaper, Il Giorno, to influence Rome. Always on the ship of Christian Democracy, Mattei embodies a strong, socializing state leadership that challenges the Americans by selling technology to the USSR in exchange for oil.
Duran, peripheral, challenges the butane hierarchs, who want nothing to do with a Catalan company bent on gasifying Spain. Finally, he will be able to overcome the opposition of the Falangists Manuel García Hernández and Luis Valero Bermejo with the support of the opener Gregorio López Bravo, head of Industry. Peripheral and decisive: Joan Sardà Dexeus drew the 1959 Stabilization plan and Pere Duran Farell injected gas into developmentalism.
Mattei was central in Italy. So central, that someone decided to liquidate him. On September 27, 1962, his plane crashed near Milan's Linate airport. An explosion destroyed the navigation devices of the plane, which had taken off from Palermo. The official investigation did not clarify anything, but a second inquiry commissioned by the family found that there was an explosive on board. Mafia? The French extreme right? American oil companies? The Mattei case remains one of Italy's great mysteries. Mystery and myth. The Italian Republic has just placed a plaque in memory of Mattei in Algiers, as part of its campaign to obtain new gas contracts.
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