Gas Production Starts at New Field in Sicily
The plant will significantly increase the amount of gas produced on Italian soil, but only a small fraction of what the country consumes
Italian petrochemical company ENI announced that it started gas production from the Argo Cassiopea field on August 19, 2024.
It is the most important project of this type in Italy, which finally saw the light of day after years of postponements due to bureaucratic delays and political obstacles. The deposits in question were actually identified in 2006, but it wasn’t until 2021 that work began, resulting in the drilling of four subsea wells in the Strait of Sicily. The gas, once produced from the field located 20 km off the coast of Agrigento, is transported through a 60 km long underwater pipeline to Gela (where there are already petrochemical plants), where it is purified and then injected into the national grid.
“The production is carried out entirely underwater, with no visual impact and near-zero emissions. The dedicated installation of 3.6 MW photovoltaic panels will achieve carbon neutrality for Category 1 and 2 emissions,” ENI wrote in a press release. “Argo Cassiopea plays a central role in ENI’s strategy to add value to the nation’s natural gas from an energy security perspective and as a low-emission source.”
The field has reserves of 10 billion cubic meters of gas, and the company’s declared annual peak production will be 1.5 billion cubic meters of gas, which is small compared to Italy’s annual consumption (about 61.5 billion cubic meters in 2023) but capable of increasing national production by 50%.
