Here is the plan to move from words to deeds. The ministers of ecological transition, Roberto Cingolani, and of economic development, Giancarlo Giorgetti, said that we should go back to exploiting the Italian methane fields instead of increasing imports. That’s how.
With an investment of around 1-1.5 billion by oil companies, simply by upgrading and upgrading the gas fields already active, in a couple of years we could double the extraction from 3.5 to 7-8 billion meters. cubic meters a year, more than 10% of the 70 billion cubic meters that Italy consumes every year. No abhorred new field would be needed, nor any reopening of those closed fields amid the collective applause of the nimby committees: it would instead be enough to put the active plants back on track, to restore activism to the already active but now depleted wells, to awaken the vented fields.
The wait for the new master plan
The companies are ready to play the game with investments but as long as the laws prevent and the rules hold back no one dares to risk a euro. A few lines of appeal to the TAR are enough to dissipate euro by the million, an opinion not expressed at the conference of services, the discontent of a politician who, in order to win consensus, ignites fears in the voters. It is expected that the Pitesai approved by the State Regions Conference, which constitutes the “master plan” to establish where the resources of the subsoil cannot be exploited (not here) and where it is possible (elsewhere but not here) ).
“Italy prefers the inauguration to maintenance.” These are the words of Leo Longanesi (1905-1957), journalist and writer from Romagna under whose house in Bagnacavallo (Ravenna) a month and a half ago the drilling of the large methane field called Longanesi was inaugurated, like the writer under the whose house there is gas. Soon the first drill will reach the deep layer and the field will begin to blow its contribution to the surface.
From the maintenance of the fields, 4 billion cubic meters more
The start-up of wells such as the Longanesi is a very rare case now, because Italy has not drilled, searched or invested in its fields for years. The fields are not liked by Italian politicians, laws and prohibitions discourage it, yet from the mere maintenance of the fields in operation today, 4 billion cubic meters more could arrive, which today instead we import at a superb price from thousands of kilometers.