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“The EU is rightly concerned about its energy security and the Mediterranean could contribute,” says Lescoeur. “There are opportunities, for exploration and production, as well as pipelines, but also geopolitics,” he said, referring to

Israel and Cyprus, the Ukraine and Russia, from which Italy

Analysis gets a lot of its gas, as well as the instability in North Africa, from which Italy imports a large amount of its oil. “The

Mediterranean needs to become a hub for increased sustain- able production.”

However, no exploration wells have been drilled in Italy’s off- shore since 2008 (a drilling ban was imposed in 2010 following the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the US Gulf of Mexico) and there are no incentives to change this, only disincentives and regulatory bureaucracy, “The whole system has to be improved right down to the bottom,” he says.

“The situation in the Adriatic is a paradox: Croatia has assigned its marine areas for oil and gas exploration while Italy is a mere onlooker, at activities carried out just miles away,” says Guido Ottolenghi, President of the Confndustria Ravenna,

Italy’s offshore industry hub.

Marcelo Masera, Head of the Energy Security Unit in

Northern Petroleum has suffered from such delays. It recently the Institute for Energy and Transport of the European

Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC). Photo from Elaine Maslin. issued an update on its southern Adriatic Sea acreage offshore

Italy. The company said there had been little opportunity to gas importer in Europe. discuss ongoing activities due to lack of “tangible progress,”

Italy’s ability to tap its resources also has broader implica- primarily relating to an application to carry out 3D seismic tions. By tapping its own resources, Italy and Europe could acquisition across the Giove oil discovery (1998) and Cygnus lower their reliance on imports, increasing energy security, exploration prospect. The application process started in 2012

Bruno Lescoeur, CEO of Italian exploration and production and without the 3D seismic the frm is unable to move ahead company Edison, told the Offshore Mediterranean Conference with exploration drilling. (OMC 2015) in Ravenna. The award of a new license in the Sicily Channel to Northern

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