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Eni has started gas production in its Argo Cassiopea field off the coast of the Italian island of Sicily.

The Argo Cassiopea production project, operated by Eni in a joint venture with Energean, is the largest gas-based energy development initiative in the country.

The project, which began three years ago, is entirely submerged; no components are visible above the waterline. The gas will be extracted from four subsea wells drilled in the Strait of Sicily in recent months and then transported through a 60-kilometer-long subsea pipeline to the processing plant in Gela on the south coast of Sicily. From there, the gas will be processed and then fed into the national electricity grid.

Eni claims that the project has low emissions and can become carbon neutral due to the existence of its own plant with 3.6 MWp of photovoltaic modules. The plant will be sufficient to offset the project’s Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions, Eni says.

Ultimately, Eni points to energy security as the basis for the Argo Cassiopea project, and the company is also engaged in the development of an offshore gas field off the coast of North Africa through its regional subsidiary Eni North Africa and the National Oil Co of Libya. Argo Cassiopea’s reserves are estimated at around 10 billion cubic metres of gas, with peak annual production expected to be 1.5 billion cubic metres of gas.

In 2022, Eni subsidiary Enimed awarded Saipem an offshore engineering and construction contract for the transportation and installation of the offshore gas pipeline connecting the four wells of the Argo Cassiopea field to the Sicilian coast, worth around €300 million (USD 305 million). With a length of 60 km and a maximum water depth of 660 m, the 14-inch gas pipeline was installed by the pipelay vessels. Castorone And Castor 10Heavy-lift ship Saipem3000 installed the utility lines connecting the Cassiopea wells to the Prezioso platform.