Security, sustainability, affordability: Gastech 2025 opens with focus on energy trilemma
Lorenzo Totaro
Senior Contributor, Europe
Sep 09, 2025
Top government officials from five countries across four continents shared insights on navigating the complex energy trilemma: balancing the urgent need for reliable supply, environmental responsibility, and broad access amid global market volatility.
They spoke in Milan, Italy, during the opening plenary session at the 53rd edition of Gastech, the world’s largest exhibition and conference for natural gas, LNG, hydrogen, climate technologies, and AI in energy.
The event will convene in Milan more than 50,000 attendees over four days, uniting government ministers, industry leaders, and innovators from 156 countries to discuss pressing energy priorities.
Innovation & security
"The choices we make here at Gastech, the partnerships we build will happen across generations. Together, we can build an energy future that will bring peace and prosperity to the entire world," said Secretary Doug Burgum, US Secretary of the Interior, emphasising the administration’s drive toward American energy dominance through balanced policies and innovation.
"The energy policies for the United States under President Donald Trump can be summarised in two simple words. Number one, peace. Number two, prosperity,” Secretary Burgum said, adding that “energy Security also requires secure supply chains, another imperative.”
He also called on the industry to “get ready for the AI revolution”. Artificial intelligence “has the potential to become the mother of nearly all, rapidly accelerating innovation,” Secretary Burgum said, noting that “the demand for power is going to be driven by AI.”
He outlined US energy ambitions following the landmark trade deal with the European Union, while Ditte Juul Jørgensen, Director-General of Energy at the European Commission, offered the EU perspective.
‘Reliable partners’
“The choices we make are the differences between conflict and cooperation, the choice between a sustainable future and climate collapse, between poverty and prosperity, between war and peace,” Jørgensen said.
“We will continue to work with reliable partners – for example, the US has become our single largest supplier of natural gas over the last few years, and they will be strengthening that relation,” she said.
Italy’s Minister of Environment and Energy Security, His Excellency Gilberto Pichetto Fratin, said: “We face ambitious and pragmatic challenges that can be summarised in the name itself of this event – gas and tech.” This is “truly a global forum of dialogue on growth and energy” as “gas will remain part of the energy mix of Europe for the decade to come,” the Minister added.
Diversification strategy
Shifting focus to the Middle East and Asia, H.E. Alparslan Bayraktar, Minister of Energy of Türkiye, detailed the nation’s efforts to diversify energy source. “Demand is growing, and at the same time, we are trying to address this demand growth with different source of chain” to secure a sustainable supply.
Also speaking during the opening session, Nigeria’s Minister of State for Petroleum Resources (Gas), H.E. Ekperikpe Ekpo, highlighted the strategic role of expanding gas infrastructure as a bridge to cleaner energy.
“Nigeria is very, very committed to developing the gas sector so that we meet the needs of the surrounding countries, as well as exporting to EU. We want to go into that area, and at the moment, we are supplying gas to West African sub region,” His Excellency said, stressing Nigeria’s commitment to support the Continent’s energy transition.
Global cooperation
H.E. Péter Szijjártó, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade of Hungary, reflected on the importance of international collaboration and pragmatic policymaking. He stressed that his country’s location in the earth of Eastern Europe means that Hungary “cannot move away from Russian energy sources.”
That – His Excellency said – “not because of politics, not because of ideology - because we do believe that neither politics nor ideology do not have anything to do with decisions of a nation to secure its own energy supplies - but because of physics and geography.”
The ministers' comments came at the launch of the 2025 edition of Gastech before a full plenary session. Christopher Hudson, President of dmg events, opened the event calling it "a global community united in advancing secure, affordable and accessible energy."
