The Globe and Mail: Energy giants eye Italy as south embarks on new oil boom

Shale gas development is moving slowly in Europe and is going in reverse in some countries, like Poland, whose gas developers are hitting the road. But a European energy rush of another sort – oil – is under way and it’s not in the North Sea. It is in Italy’s far south, a region best known for soaring unemployment, dying mountain towns, olive orchards and tourists who are weary of the twee towns of Tuscany.

The region is known as Basilicata, which forms the “instep” of the boot of Italy, on the Ionian Sea. According to the BP Statistical Review, the region holds the bulk of Italy’s 1.4-billion barrels of proven reserves, the third largest on the continent, after Norway and Britain, which share the North Sea’s (declining) reserves. Italy’s reserves make them Europe’s biggest on-shore store of oil.

With Italy struggling to bring down its 12.7-per-cent jobless rate – a shocking 42 per cent among youths – the national and regional governments are keen lure investment into the underdeveloped south and a few of the biggest oil companies are drawing up Basilicata investment plans. They include Italian national oil giant ENI, whose traditional stomping grounds are in Africa, Royal Dutch Shell, Total of France and Japan’s Mitsui.  MORE