The newly established Ministry of Ecological Transition signs off on authorisation for around ten extraction projects. While awaiting a regulatory plan for drilling, the ministry explains: “We had no choice but to sign.”
For the energy transition not to remain a concept, a theory on paper, concrete actions are needed. Different actions, however, from drilling rigs to extract methane and oil offshore and onshore, authorised by the Ministry of Ecological Transition in agreement with the Ministry of Cultural Heritage, which seem to be heading in the opposite direction.
Specifically, minister Roberto Cingolani has unblocked ten concessions relating to 20 deposits for the extraction of methane gas, plus one exploratory concession for oil prospecting, scattered across the subsoil of Emilia, the seabed of the Adriatic Sea and the Strait of Sicily.
What Cingolani signed is an extension of new concessions, which had until now been blocked by a moratorium introduced at the beginning of 2019 in the Simplifications Decree, which provided for the suspension of offshore hydrocarbon exploration for 18 months, as well as a 25-fold increase in concession fees.
The 2019 measure – which in practice did not block extraction activities already under way, but only authorisations for new prospecting and exploration – was supposed to be followed by the introduction of the Pitesai, an acronym standing for Piano per la transizione energetica sostenibile delle aree idonee (Plan for the Sustainable Energy Transition of Suitable Areas), to be approved by 13 February 2021, with the aim of identifying the areas suitable for the carrying out of fossil fuel extraction activities by operators.
Once the deadline passed, the moratorium lapsed and the ministry was forced to sign off on the procedures for research and prospecting activities, and now, since the Pitesai did not arrive in time, the authorisation processes have restarted and the plan's new deadline has been pushed back to 30 September.
The list of authorised drilling rigs is long and many of them concern activities led by oil company Eni. There is the offshore Calipso deposit, 35 kilometres from Ancona, and the drilling of Donata, off San Benedetto del Tronto. Authorisation has also been granted for the replacement of the Bonaccia platform, off Recanati, where Eni will be able to drill four wells and lay connecting pipelines to bring methane ashore.
Eni is also active in the Strait of Sicily, where new drilling has been permitted at the Lince methane deposit, off the coast of Licata and Gela. Between Siracusa and Caltanissetta, six new extraction wells plus a further two exploratory wells have been deemed suitable in relation to environmental parameters.
And then there is the commissioning of Teodorico, facing the Ravenna lido, by Australian company Po Valley, which has also received the green light for methane extraction at the Selva Malvezzi deposit, in the countryside around Budrio, in the lower Po plain near Bologna. As reported by the financial and economic daily Il Sole 24 ore, Po Valley will also have to build a plant to treat the gas and a pipeline to connect to the national gas network. In Emilia-Romagna there are also two renewals of mining concessions in the province of Modena, Barigazzo and Vietta, for the benefit of Modena-based Siam.
The current Ministry of Ecological Transition's concession is nothing more than a mini-extension, pending the adoption of the Pitesai. Among the plan's objectives is the rationalisation of deposits and the closure of those that are less profitable and no longer active: if we consider natural gas, indeed, 13 per cent of active concessions provide 80 per cent of national production, meaning that 4 billion cubic metres out of the 5 billion extracted in 2019 come from just fifteen concessions.
Internal sources at the Ministry of Ecological Transition explain that there was no choice and that the risk was of ending up before the courts: "The minister had no choice but to sign. These were administrative processes that had started years ago and it was impossible not to sign. Even the Mibact did so." The same sources report that minister Roberto Cingolani is "confident that the Pitesai will soon be in place, which is the answer to the plethora of permits in the process of being finalised."
The Pitesai will also need to be integrated with the marine planning required by the European Union, which calls for the implementation of "marine strategies" with the aim of protecting and preserving the marine environment, preventing its deterioration and, where possible, proceeding with the restoration of marine ecosystems in areas where they have been impacted. But on this front too Italy is behind schedule: 31 March 2021 was the deadline by which each member state should have submitted its Maritime Spatial Management Plan. Only six states met the deadline and Italy, unfortunately, is not among them.
Cingolani, then, is said to be working to accelerate the introduction of the drilling regulatory plan as much as possible. Greenpeace, Legambiente and Wwf, in a joint press release, speak of an "upstream problem", in that there is no law that "establishes a clear final deadline for the validity of existing production concessions and that consequently provides for a halt to all activities related to them, as well as a halt to authorisations for new hydrocarbon research and prospecting activities."
The environmental associations are calling for the European commitments on cutting CO2 emissions not to be underestimated, by establishing – as France and Denmark have done – a final deadline on the restrictions of areas for the exploration of liquid and gaseous hydrocarbons, at sea and on land, "in order to genuinely bring our country, within twenty years, to a complete halt to all oil and gas extraction activities."
Joining the three associations in their criticism is the No Triv committee. "Despite the narrative that has taken hold, a drill-blocking regulation has never existed in Italy," explains Enrico Gagliano, co-spokesperson for the No Triv national coordination. "The suspension introduced by the Semplificazioni decree-law did not entail any suspension of hydrocarbon extraction activities, so much so that national gas production in 2019 was around 1.6 billion cubic metres, while in 2020 it fell by around 15 per cent." According to Gagliano, the Pitesai, the suspensions and the extension measures bear no relation to one another. "The distinctive feature of the extensions signed by Cingolani lies elsewhere: the latest decrees have extended concessions whose term had already expired some time ago." A paradox made possible by a retroactive provision introduced under the Monti government: "Companies submit an application to extend a licence before it expires and continue to extract gas and oil even beyond the expiry date, while awaiting approval of the extension."
As regards the EIA decrees signed by the ministers, the No Triv coordination flags two grounds for illegitimacy, the first concerning the drilling of the Lince I well in the Strait of Sicily, the other off the coasts of Marche and Abruzzo. "Ministers Cingolani and Franceschini signed two EIA decrees that they should not have been able to sign: the first, the Sicilian one, because it violates the suspension of exploration permits introduced by the Semplificazioni decree; the second because it lacks the mandatory opinion of one of the regions concerned, namely the Abruzzo region," concludes Gagliano.
Finally, once the Pitesai is approved, the entire issue of decommissioning, recovery and reuse of platforms and wells will come to the fore. A 2019 document signed by the ministries of Economic Development, the Environment and Cultural Heritage, together with the industry association Assomineraria, envisaged the immediate decommissioning of 22 offshore structures. To these, Legambiente, Greenpeace and Wwf added a further 12, for a total of 34 no-longer-productive fields which, if abandoned, become a danger to the environment. In short, as the environmental associations once again point out, it would be better to focus efforts on the remediation supply chain rather than continuing to subsidise new oil reserves in our seas which, taken together, would cover national demand for only seven weeks.
Article updated on 20 April 2021 with the contribution of the No Triv coordination.
