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From Bulletin 1996, N.3 |
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Edison Gas is the Edison’s Group Company, responsible for exploration, production, transport and distribution of hydrocarbons. Edison Gas is today the second largest Italian producer of gas with 1,2 billion cubic meters (1995) mainly produced from Adriatic Offshore reservoirs; most of gas production supplies the thermoelectric power stations of the Group (2750 Megawatt, of which 1800 are thermoelectric). Furthermore, Edison Gas controls 900 km. of gas pipeline network, part of which in partnership. Such a network, which is being expanding, is comprehensive of a 650 km long pipeline, that connects the Adriatic Sea with the "Marche" and "Abruzzi" Regions and proceeds towards Rome, supplying Montedison enterprises, various municipalities and third party industries. Since 1992 Edison has been implementing a vast expansion plan which includes the construction of new plants and the acquisition of electric power stations. By the time the expansion program has been completed total consumption should reach 3 billion cubic meters per year. It is part of the group's strategy that Edison Gas is closely connected with the production of electric energy, with the overall objective of creating an integrated energy company specialized in the natural gas sector. In 1827, by decree of the archduke of Tuscany, the go-ahead was given for the industrial development of a copper mine in the district of Montecatini in the Val di Cecina which since 1469 had been explored by a Florentine jeweler. In that same mine, acquired in 1888, the company "Società Anonima delle Miniere di Montecatini" started its industrial activities. At a later date this company became "Società Montecatini. A few years before, in 1884, the company "Società Generale di Elettricità Sistema Edison" (later to become simply "Società Edison") was established by the same committee responsible for the setting up in Milan (1883) of an electric power station to achieve the first system for the public distribution of electricity in Europe. After numerous name changes these two industrial entities, which with time had acquired a considerable tradition in mining and energy, resulted in the company which we know today as Edison Gas. At the end of the second world war the company "Società Montecatini" undertook, as part of its mining activities, an extensive hydrocarbon exploration program in Italy. This activity started in 1946 with gravimetric and seismic surveys in the Po Valley. Subsequently the concession for the plain of Padana was exclusively awarded to the state body. As a result Montecatini concentrated its exploration activity in the central and southern part of the peninsula and adopted an aggressive campaign for the acquisition of exploration permits, even for technically challenging prospects. From 1949 Montecatini began exploration activities in Crotonese and from 1953 in the regions of Marche, Abruzzi and Molise. In the latter half of the fifties, due to the expected nationalization of electricity generation and distribution activities, Edison began to invest in the chemical and petroleum exploration industries. Through Montecatini and Edison private capital was invested in petroleum exploration in Italy, an area of predominately public capital. Montecatini and Edison operate in the field of hydrocarbon exploration through a number of subsidiaries of which the more important are Petrosud (Montecatini) and Ausonia Mineria (Edison). The two parent companies have chosen to give complete independence for operations to the subsidiaries and their trust has been repaid by a series of promising discoveries which strengthened the intuition of a small group of competent and enthusiastic technicians. Those of us old enough to have participated will remember the trepidation experienced during the drilling of the first exploration wells, the enthusiasm of the first discoveries and the scouting activities during these times of pioneering when entire days were spent on the top of a hill to find out by counting the drill pipe the depth of the competitor’s well. The first important discovery, after the 1955 discovery of the Cigno oil reservoir (Pescara), was the Cellino gas reservoir (Teramo). The well Cellino 1 (1958) found gas in the sandy levels of the lower Pliocene which, for the first time, showed Pliocene prospects to be of interest. Until that time exploration had been conducted predominately in limestone formations. For the completion of the Cellino wells, Montecatini used dual production string which was then a new technology. With the discovery of Cellino, Montecatini was able to construct an important gas pipeline for central Italy to transport gas to its base in Bussi (Pescara) from where it supplied civilian consumers in Pescara and Teramo. This initiative marked the entrance of Montecatini into the field of gas transport and commercialization. Between the years 1961 and 1964 the partnership between SNIA (50%) and Montecatini (50%) discovered and developed the gas reservoirs Candelina Palino and Ascoli Satriano (Foggia) which is still today the biggest producing gas reservoir on the Italian peninsula. The Edison subsidiary, Ausonia discovered in 1963 the reservoir Portocannone (Campobasso), whose development led to the establishment of the "Società Gasdotti del Mezzogiorno (S.G.M.) and the entrance of Edison into the market for the transportation and commercialization of gas. Other discoveries worth remembering are the gas reservoirs Fano (1959), Bellante (1960), Lentella (1961, which is now an integrated part of the concession San Salvo Cupello) and the oil reservoirs Capoiaccio and Cercemaggiore (1963) whose light petroleum with associated carbon dioxide made it necessary to adopt an innovative treatment technology. Foreign exploration activities, though not very successful, were pursued by Ausonia Mineria in Algeria, Portugal and Turkey. In 1966, following the amalgamation of Montecatini and Edison, all the petroleum related activities were united and restructured within the new industrial group. It was during this period that the state, which approved of the method of awarding mineral rights to joint ventures (1968), acknowledged the intrinsic risk typical of investing in exploration activities and authorized the joint ownership of exploration permits. This new initiative favoured the setting-up of ever closer collaboration between the various companies. Montedison, amongst its other initiatives, participated successfully in joint ventures for exploration activities which led to the development of the onshore gas reservoirs Carassai and Grottammare and the offshore gas reservoirs Anemone and Azalea in the Adriatic. Montedison’s annual production of gas increased from about 40 million cubic meters in 1961 to 90 million in 1966 to reach 650 million in 1973 and 780 million in 1986. Since the end of the seventies, the discovery in "Canale di Sicilia" of the oil reservoirs Mila (1978) and Vega (1981) and, on the north eastern border of the ENI zone, the gas reservoir Conegliano (1981) gave a new impulse to investment in the region which for many years had been considered only of marginal interest. In the years immediately following these discoveries some important achievements were made including the introduction of several innovative technologies which are listed here: the installation and start-up of the Vega platform, offshore Sicily (1986), drilling of deep wells, conventional and short radius horizontal wells and the application of quadruple completions (1992). Montedison reached an annual oil production of 2.9 million barrels in 1988 while annual gas production was 700 million cubic meters. The present company organization of Edison Gas was established in the early nineties in conjunction with the choice of strategy to concentrate their activities on the gas industry. In 1992 the mining rights of Deutsche Shell in Italy were acquired, which besides consolidating exploration activities also led to a rapid increase in gas production. To the output from older fields further production was added through significant partnerships (49%) for the offshore reservoirs Emma, Squalo, Giovanna, Clara West and in 1995 Daria. At the same time exploration activities abroad were promoted and resulted in the start up of production in the North Sea in 1992 from the reservoir Markham. Edison Gas has 45 exploration permits in Italy, is co-owner of 52 concessions for hydrocarbon exploitation and 2 concessions for storage. The group has 9 mineral rights abroad. In 1995 Edison Gas represented 5.6% of the national market for natural gas production which corresponds to about 70% of that produced by the private sector. Sales were to the thermoelectric stations of the group (54%), to industrial consumers (29%), to domestic distributors (13%) and the rest abroad. Gas production is expected to undergo a further increase to reach 1.6 billion cubic meters in 1996 |
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