Gas, the treasure in the Italian seas: the beautiful country does not produce from its fields, but prefers to buy from others
Over 90 billion cubic meters of methane at the bottom of the Italian sea. 120 billion, if we consider the potential resources of gas not yet ascertained. Right now I’m there, waiting for someone to do something about it. Certainly two and a half years have passed since the moratorium on permits and concessions pending Pitesai. There are plants blocked in the Upper Adriatic, from Emilia Romagna, for example off the coast of Comacchio, to the Marche off the coast of San Benedetto del Tronto and Alba Adriatica, suspensions off the coast of Puglia and strong potential also along the coast of Sicily.
For example, there is the Argo-Cassiopea case in Gela. Here Eni-Med in joint-venture with Edison aimed to invest up to 1.8 billion to exploit the gas in the Sicilian channel, cross 4 submarine wells connected to a treatment plant to be built within the perimeter of the Gela refinery.
As he writes on the Messenger Roberta Amoruso, now the Plan for the Sustainable Energy Transition of Eligible Areas, the map of possible activities, could have reached the goal of the ok of the local authorities. But in the meantime, business investments have almost disappeared. However, it would take years to restart the car. It is like sitting on a treasure that is worth at least 150 billion euros, considering the price of one cubic meter of gas, but letting others benefit. Croatia, for example, or Albania and Greece, who suck as they can and without stopping from them deposits at the bottom of the sea, but they do it from their “straw”, on the other side of the Adriatic.
Today of those 120 billion cubic meters, Italy produces only 4. But it consumes over 70. The rest buys it abroad, from Russia, Qatar, Algeria, Norway and even the United States. Not to mention that transporting all this gas has its own impact on the environment. Italy could therefore produce at home at a cost of 5 cents and even resell part of it and earn a lot. Instead it is forced to buy at the price that the market decides. Yesterday, a cubic meter of gas reached 140 cents (with a maximum of 138). And what’s worse is that methane has also dragged the electricity prices, well over 300 per megawatt hour.
And maybe Germany’s ok could also get to North Stream 2, the new pipeline which connects Russia to Germany via the Baltic Sea, thus bypassing Ukraine. There are no requirements and doubts about safety remain, they say for now from Berlin. The premier Dragons however, he understood that there is no time to waste: a bill-saving structural plan that protects Italy from an energy crisis that may prove to be longer than expected. Italy must be able to play with its own gas fields.
There moratorium on drills started in February, it has effectively frozen around 150 authorizations: 73 research permits already in force and another 79 for which the request is pending. Plus another 5 prospecting requests, which in technical jargon always means exploration of the subsoil, but without the use of machines for drilling.
Yet, that more than something was changing was understood months ago, in April, when the Green light for the environment to 10 projects to exploit the national methane and oil fields hidden in the Emilian subsoil (oil companies Po Valley And Siam) and under the seabed of the Adriatic (Po Valley ed Eni) and the Strait of Sicily (Eni). In all, the various projects that have obtained environmental approval include the drilling of more than 20 new wells. 2022 is destined to be the year of the turning point. Because pushing on the extraction of home gas is the path that the premier is determined to follow Dragons and the minister Cingolani.
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