Independent Resources Press Reports That Rivara May Have The Environmental Greenlight To Proceed.
This is a strategic project for a country highly dependent on imports for its energy needs – an issue given added urgency following the recent upheavals in North Africa – but has long been under review awaiting environmental approvals. On Monday the local press reported that the Environmental Impact Assessment Commission, a panel of experts conducting a detailed review of the project, had voted to allow Rivara to proceed.
Independent Resources has not received any formal confirmation of this but such an event would be very welcome as the many years of bureaucratic and political wrangling that have enmeshed this project has withered investor interest in the AIM-quoted company.
Rivara has a capacity of 110 BCF and could add over 20 per cent to peak deliverability into Italy’s heavily strained supply network during the winter season. Indeed, Independent Resources (IRG) believes the project, which sits in Europe’s third-largest gas market and on the main natural gas trunk-line that links Europe’s future gas supplies to market, has the “potential to become the most competitive merchant gas storage facility on the continent”.
Rivara is a deep porous reservoir, saturated with brine, and although these aquifers have routinely been used all over the world to store gas, they have never been used in Italy. This has contributed to the delays as the authorities have taken a risk-averse view of this storage solution. Even if the Ministry has now cleared the project, there is still much work to be done including a significant appraisal programme ahead of the Final Investment Decision.
This work programme would lay the groundwork for a farm-out to a large integrated natural gas operator, reducing IRG’s stake to a more manageable level ahead of the €300 million development (and the reservoir would hold over twice that value in gas). At present IRG has a 75 per cent interest in the project, alongside Italian energy group ERG with 15 per cent.
