From Bulletin 1999, N.3

GUIDO BONARELLI
A LEADING OIL PIONEER

Guido Bonarelli (1871-1951) was the first Italian oil pioneer to receive international acclaim and can legitimately be considered one of the advocates of oil and gas exploration in Italy.

Born in Ancona on 25 July 1871, Bonarelli moved with his family when he was just a few years old to Gubbio, near Perugia in Umbria, where he attended the local primary and secondary schools. He studied, first, at the University of Rome and, then, in Turin where he graduated in 1894 in Natural Sciences with specialisation in geology. After spending a few years teaching at the university, Bonarelli, a restless soul, was attracted by the great geographic explorations being undertaken in those exciting years at the beginning of the 20^th century.

Bonarelli's first work experience in the Dutch Indies and Argentina

In 1901 Bonarelli accepted the offer made to him by the Royal Dutch company, forefather of Shell, to go to Borneo in the Dutch Indies to join the oil exploration activities being carried out there. He stayed in Borneo until 1907, plotting geological maps to be used for oil exploration. After returning to Italy he devoted himself entirely to international consultancy until 1911, offering his services to companies interested in exploring potential hydrocarbon bearing basins.

He travelled the length and breadth of the Balkans and then went to Turkey and Iraq. His next stops were Spain, Algeria and Tunisia before arriving in Argentina in 1911. It was love at first sight! He stayed there for 16 years and during this time laid the foundations of oil exploration as Exploration Manager at YPF (Yacimentos Petroliferos Fiscales), the Argentinian state oil company founded in 1922.

His return to Italy and work in AGIP

AGIP was founded in 1926 by the Italian government to meet the need for a national oil company able to perform organic oil exploration in Italy and abroad. The company's Management did not hesitate in picking out Guido Bonarelli to organise the Exploration Sector, well aware that he was the Italian geologist with the biggest experience in the international field.

Bonarelli immediately made known what strategy he believed AGIP should pursue: for Italy he recommended that exploration should focus on the Po Valley, Abruzzo, Basilicata and Sicily, while abroad attention should be focussed on Romania, Iraq, Albania, Eritrea and Libya.

However at this time there was no accurate geophysical method available, because reflection seismics would not reach Italy until 1940 with an American seismic crew from the Western Geophysical Company. After a number of structures had been identified using this method, the Caviaga gas field near Lodi was discovered in 1944. This was the first giant field in Western Europe with 12 billion cubic metes of reserves.

The Tramutola discovery, predecessor of the Val d´Agri

In 1932 Bonarelli identified the Tramutola oil reservoir in Basilicata using only geological methods. However, drilling operations stopped at 1,000 metres instead of reaching the 2,000 metres or more suggested by Bonarelli because the equipment at the time was not sophisticated enough. The Val d'Agri fields (the largest onshore fields in Western Europe) were discovered in the Eighties just ten or so kilometres from Tramutola with the development of new technologies.

The years following the war and his support to E. Mattei in his fight to re-launch AGIP

After the war he supported Enrico Mattei, Commissioner of AGIP, in his fight to save the company from the government's decision to wind it down. In two meetings held at the Ministry of Industry in 1946 Bonarelli, going against the then Industry Minister Ivan Matteo Lombardo, claimed that "only irresponsible fools can be pardoned for thinking that Italy can do without AGIP. The geological and geophysical studies carried out throughout the country have verified the presence of potentially interesting areas for oil and gas accumulations. The discovery of Caviaga proves this".

He then insisted to extend exploration activities to the Adriatic Sea, where, in his opinion, there were similar structures to those discovered in the Po Valley. In the late Fifties the first offshore seismic surveys in Europe were carried out and drilling activities started in 1959. This would prove that the Adriatic is abundant in gas reserves. However Bonarelli did not see the results of this work, because he died in Rome of January 11, 1951.