Italy to Reopen Its Offshore Following Ban

Italy is set to repeal a 2010 ban on offshore oil and gas drilling, an Italian senator has said.

The ban, which prohibits drilling for hydrocarbons with a 12-mile zone of certain protected shores and 5 miles from other Italian shorelines, was enacted in response to the BP Deepwater Horizon spill in August 2010.

However, Platts reports today that Italian Senator Francesco Ferrante says the government is now reconsidering the ban, and plans to bring the exclusion zone to five miles off any Italian shoreline, with no special dispensation given to protected areas.

"There is talk that the introduction of these measures is very imminent,"Senator Ferrante said.

"If these changes are pushed through, we will obviously fight them when they come to the Senate for approval. Not only are they not particularly beneficial economically speaking, but they also pose significant environmental risk."

However, pressure from a number of oil and gas companies may have motivated the decision to repeal the ban, as several companies were left unable to pursue active projects following the ban.

Mediterranean Oil & Gas (MOG) was forced to cease work on the Ombrina Mare project in light of the ban, leaving the project in stasis since 2010.

Speaking to Rigzone in May, CEO of MOG Bill Higgs said the company was unwilling to walk away from its investment in the project.

"We've spent €23 million on Ombrina Mare and we're not going to, at the end of the day, just walk away from that," he said.

Italian company Eni has also previously voiced its support for the repeal of the ban. Last year, vice president of operations Antonio Vella said the ban was impeding the development of resources in Italian waters.

"We have a lot of resources that have already been discovered, but unfortunately in Italy we cannot develop them," he said. "Italy is effectively the only country worldwide to respond to Macondo [Deepwater Horizon spill] that way."

The decision to introduce the repeal to Cabinet could come as soon as this week, Mr. Ferrante told Platts, with a decision on whether to keep the repeal to be decided in parliament 60 days after that.