ENI's Gas Operations and Strategy in the Mediterranean Area

By

 Pietro Cavanna¹

(1) ENI Agip Division, N/A, Italy

 A brief outlook of the main gas activity, results and goals in the Mediterranean area is presented. Italy’s geographical position in the Mediterranean Sea is a natural condition to be a reference point for the development of gas projects along the North African coastline.

Three case histories are then discussed: Italy, Egypt and Libya.

Italy represents the first country where gas has been explored and developed since the 1950s, with significant discoveries , an important storage system and a 29,000 km pipe network.

In Egypt, IEOC made its first gas discovery in Abu Madi onshore field in 1967 and developed the first gas clause. In the 1980s, several discoveries were made in the Egyptian offshore.

In Libya, even though the target was traditionally oil-prone, the first gas discovery occurred in the NC41 area in 1976. However, it was only after negotiations with NOC that an agreement was signed in 1999 with Libya’s state-owned company to develop gas resources in NC41 and Wafa fields for an export project by realizing a challenging gas transmission system connecting Libya to Sicily.

Therefore, as the above mentioned activities attest, Eni is one the major players in the gas operations and strategies in the Mediterranean region.