PO Valley says ‘Mama Mia’ to first gas production in Italy

Australia’s Po Valley Energy has welcomed the Italian Ministry of Environment giving the Selva gas field development in Northern Italy a green light that has brought the project to the cusp of production.

At the same time the company revealed that final environmental approval for the Teodorico offshore gas project was expected in the March quarter following primary environmental approval in 2019.

Po Valley CEO, Michael Masterman commented: “Environmental approvals for the low cost, high return Selva gas field, and the imminent environmental approval for Teodorico, have set the scene for a very robust project out-performance in the opening half of this year.”

The company said in its report for the December quarter that development and preliminary work had commenced to prepare the Selva field for gas production in 2020, with a final EIA decree expected in the second quarter of 2020.

EIA approval

This follows the granting early last year to Po Valley of the formal Selva Malvezzi preliminary gas Production Concession (80.68km²) by the Italian Ministry for Economic Development. 

Under the first phase of the development plan, Po Valley will install a fully automated gas plant at the existing Selva/Podere Maiar 1dir well site and install a one-kilometre long pipeline to connect the well with the nearby Italian National Gas Grid.

Based on dynamic reservoir studies, the field development is designed to produce at a maximum rate of up to 150,000 cubic metres/day (5.3 mmscf/day) from successfully tested C1 and C2 production levels in the Medium-Upper Pliocene sands of the Porto Garibaldi Formation.

The Teodorico gas field is located in shallow east coast waters (30m) of the northern Adriatic Sea – the primary source of domestic gas production for much of Italy – and in close proximity to existing east coast offshore gas production facilities.

Following the granting of the primary environmental approval in February 2019, Teodorico continued during the December quarter to advance through the regulatory approval process. Key related EIA approval integrated documentation has now been submitted and Po Valley expects to complete the regulatory approval process early in 2020.

Teodorico has the largest gas-in-place of all of Po Valley’s gas fields and is at an advanced stage of assessment, ready for development.

The Company has commenced the new decade with primary environmental approval for Selva and Teodorico and a plan to advance both of these large-scale fields during 2020. Selva in particular has low development costs and is likely to be the first of the two gas fields to first gas production