On the basis of an agreement between the Ministry of the Environment and Assomineraria, strongly backed by Eni, the oil industry undertakes to improve the environmental impact of its activities.
Agip Division has earmarked more than 60 billion lire for the period 1999-2002. With innovative production techniques, higher efficiency, lower costs and greater respect for the territory are achieved.
We met Innocenzo Titone, Director of the Italian Geographic Unit of Agip Division, to check on the state of Agip Division’s contribution to the objectives indicated in the agreement protocol signed on April 30, 1999 between the Environment Ministry and Assomineraria.
This agreement, strongly favored by Eni, sets out reciprocal duties: the oil industries undertake to diminish the impact their activities have on the environment, while the Ministry commits itself to an amelioration of the bureaucratic aspect of authorization.
Health, safety and environment are integral parts of our business practice:The Protocol commitments which interest Agip Division are various: reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, a reduction of drilling waste, strong reductions in toxicity of products used, industrial site clean up at factory closing down time, and so on.
Eni has offered its services to supply the institutions with useful data on territory management; to seek, together with the Ministry, new ways of environmental compatibility and to identify the best methodologies to adopt for activities that are still non regulated.
For the achievement of all these objectives, Agip Division has put aside a fund of 60 billion Lire for the four-year period 1999-2002.
According to the director of Agip Division, this is a good investment which will bring ecological advantages together with reduced costs and faster schedules. “The agreement” - adds Titone - “fits in very well with the policies that Eni chose a long time ago.
Already before this agreement, Agip Division had adopted the ISO 14001 certification for its environmental management system”.
Its awareness that reductions in the environmental impact improve productive processes, work quality and safety conditions, has led the Division to take an additional step forward by adopting a new HSE regulation system for the integrated management of health, safety and environment care.
The added value of environment care:The old paradigm: “the less we spend on the environment the more profit we make” no longer holds. Investors and possible industrial partners tend to evaluate with growing attention the ecological curriculum of a company”.
According to Titone, the Agip areas of commitment foreseen by the protocol are a practical demonstration of how a diminished environmental impact combines with increased efficiency and reduced costs.
The first example is the use of a new technology which allows a “narrow” well to be drilled and drastically reduces hole diameter. “It is possible with this system to reduce by 50 percent the drilling wastes which have to be placed in dumping sites.
This implies a reduced environmental impact, saves on dumping site costs and speeds up drilling operations”.
A further reduction in drilling wastes has been obtained with the design of a closed-circuit waste mud treatment plant.
But there is more: in addition to being minimized, the waste may be recovered thanks to a technology which permits its renewed use in cement production factories.
The added value obtained through environment care doesn’t stop at the Agip Division, but turns on Group synergies. The research on reducing drilling mud toxicity has witnessed the joint efforts of Agip Petroli’s and Agip Division’s laboratories.
The result is called “Lamium”, a paraffin oil with an aromatic content of less than one percent (diesel fuel aromatics add up to 30 percent), and it reduces the ecological toxicity of mud from 26 down to 0.009 milligrams/liter.
Moreover, the product is safer, is non flammable and doesn’t contain volatile compounds which might be breathed in.
As you see, the integrated environment, safety and health approach produces good results, comments Titone, as he tells about another ecological example regarding the reduction of methane emission into the atmosphere.
With the contribution of Tecnomare, new compressor enclosures have been engineered for the drastic reduction of methane losses in the atmosphere, from a 46 cu.m/hour value to 4 cu.m/hour, greatly lowering methane dispersion and its related greenhouse effect.
“This is a case which like the others above implies a double benefit: reduced environmental impact together with energy recuperation”.
Land cleaning up and reclaiming of Agip’s derelict sites are carried out in collaboration with EniAmbiente, a leader in this sector. 26 priority sites have been selected and their respective reclamation and clean-up projects have been launched, eight of which are expected to be concluded within the year, while the others should be completed before the end of 2002.
A transparency commitment:National hydrocarbons are an important and strategic economic resource, but they have to be looked for in a long, narrow country, densely populated, with complicated relief and morphological soil characteristics and high environmental values.
What does this imply for the Eni group?
“It means a profound knowledge of the territory, and implies the use of environmental impact minimizing technologies, not only against soil and air pollution, but also against visual and noise impacts.
And it especially means constant collaboration with local authorities and residents, the maximum transparency of operations and of environmental impact data.
“Titone assures us that the Agip Division does not limit itself to the adoption of the best possible technologies, and that it dedicates its best efforts to the innovation of technology and to environmental research studies.
“Let us remember that between the disciplines that characterize our work, naturalistic engineering plays an important role, especially in particularly delicate areas such as in the Agri valley”.
Our environmental culture spreads to every worker and every activity of the Group. This is demonstrated by the latest technology award. “Of the 18 jobs which obtained an excellency mention or the technology development prize, seven had positive environmental spinoffs”, remarks Titone.
A better knowledge of the territory:The great load of data collected over tens of years of petroleum activities represents a precious aid for territorial management.
Titone names, between others, the data collection relating to the erosion of the Adriatic coasts, the micro-seismic data capture system in the Emilia Romagna and Lombardy regions, and the satellite aided measurement of land subsidence on the Adriatic coast.
A significant example of the importance that seismic activity and geological data have for territorial analysis is the identification of non-saline ground waters. We have elaborated this fresh water map for Emilia Romagna and we are working on the map for the Lombardy region.
These data are fundamental for protecting the sources from possible polluting impacts, and for the preservation of an increasingly precious resource”.
Last but not least, petroleum activities have provided data which may be useful for the development of renewable energy sources: for example, the meteorological-marine data collected by offshore platforms may be used for wind potential evaluation.
Agip Division has made itself fully available in this field, preparing a series of studies and documentation on the environmental impact of petroleum activities, on the decommissioning of exploitation platforms, on meteorological marine data collected throughout the Adriatic regions, etc.. So, after more than a year since the signature of the agreement protocol , results confirm that Eni has done its share.
“And now” - concludes the director of the Italian geographical unit - “we expect the Environment Ministry to start discussions soonest so as to coordinate and foster the establishment of clear procedures for permit granting.
Unequivocal and rapid timing is fundamental for the programming of our activities, which, both by law and due to voluntary choice, are subject to increasingly severe environmental limits and controls”.
Luigi Valgimigli
Source E.N.I
© 2001 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
