Exploration Country Focus
Italy
Historical Perspective
An entrepreneurial exploration for hydrocarbons, in Italy, is thought to have started in 1860 when in Ozzano, near the city of Parma, the Achille Donzelli company drilled two wells to depths of 32 and 45 metres, obtaining 25 kg of oil per day. In the following decades and until the close of the century, several shallow wells were drilled by small enterprises along the southern margin of the Po Plain and in central Italy (around the cities of Pescara and Frosinone) leading to small oil productions which were used mainly for public lighting purposes. During the first three decades of the 20th Century other small discoveries were made in the same areas and in Sicily. Gas was also started to be used for domestic purposes or to fuel lights.
In 1926 AGIP (Azienda Generale Italiana Petroli) was founded by the government as an atempt to break the market for petroleum products which, in Italy, had fallen under the control of branches of multinational oil companies. AGIP, later incorporated in Eni (Ente Nazionale Idrocarburi), was soon to become the principal player in the oil and gas business of the country.
The search for hydrocarbons rose to an industrial level of activity during the forties. The exploration moved from the hills of the Northern Apennines to its adjacent foredeep, the Po Plain: Caviaga, the largest gas field in western Europe at that time, was here discovered in 1944. Gas was to become the backbone of the Italian energy policy. During those years the first natural gas pipeline network was also built to convey gas from the gas fields of the Po Plain to the cities of Lodi and Milan. In the following decades successful exploration campaigns were also carried out all along the peri-Adriatic foredeep and in Calabria and Sicily, both onshore and offshore. Contributing to these successes were, besides Eni, Edison, Enterprise, Elf, Esso, Fina, Gulf, Shell and Total. Consequently, the national gas pipeline network was greatly increased (up to 30,000 km) and, because of the growing demand, import lines from outside were also laid down: in the early seventies international pipelines from the Netherlands and the Soviet Union were opened and in 1983 the 2,500 km long Transmediterranean pipeline, transporting gas from the Hassi-R-Mel field in Algeria to the Po Valley, was inaugurated. More recently, in 2004, the Green Stream, a gas pipeline connecting Libya to Sicily, was opened.
Today the Italian petroleum acreage is composed by 86 exploration permits and 195 development leases covering more than 53,000 km2. As shown in fig. 1 the licences are distributed mainly in the Po Plain, in the peri-Adriatic foredeep, in the Southern Appennines and in Sicily.
During the almost 150 years of exploration and production activities in Italy, the following records were attained.
Figure 1. Italy's permit acreage - 1944.
- Discovery of Caviaga, the largest gas field in the western Europe of that time.
- 1959.
- Agip's "Gela Mare 21", the first offshore well in Europe, is drilled offshore Sicily.
- 1976.
- The first remotecontrolled platform in Italy for crude oil production is put in place at Perla 1, offshore Sicily.
- 1977.
- Agip drills to a record depth of 5,500 meters in the Malossa field (near Milan) and discovers a new oil pool.
- 1984.
- Villafortuna, the largest onshore oil field in Europe, is discovered in northern Italy at a new record depth of 6000 m. Its size will be then superseeded by the Monte Alpi field (Val D’Agri), discovered in 1988.
- 1990s.
- Aquila oil field (Otranto Channel) is put into production. The field is in 800 m of water, the deepest in Europe.
The current permit acreage in Italy is shown in Figure 1.