Agip SpA will spend at least $120 million for oil spill cleanup and well repair costs and related damages stemming from a Feb. 28 well blowout in Trecate, Italy's biggest oil field.
It was Italy's first onshore well blowout.
The development well, 24 Trecate, apparently kicked when drillstring was being pulled from the hole. The string parted, and the well blew out, spewing a column of oil mixed with water and gas 100 m into the air. The wild well flowed as much as 1,400 b/d of oil for 3 days before it was brought fully under control Mar. 2 (OGJ, Mar. 14, p. 35).
The blowout produced a 40 m vapor cloud that mixed with rain and deposited 12,000 cu m of oily residue across farms, buildings, and roads in the vicinity. Hardest hit were 4,500 acres of rice fields being cultivated by 120 farms.
Trecate, which produces 40,000 b/d, lies near Ticino National Park and 9 km from the historic city of Novara at the center of Europe's prime rice producing region. The field accounts for about half of Italy's oil production.
In a meeting earlier this month with local authorities, Franco Bernabe, chairman of Agip parent and state energy holding company Ente Nazionale Idrocarburi, detailed Agip's cleanup steps and costs to date.
The well control and repair and spill cleanup costs are expected to total $89 million. Agip also paid rice farmers $31 million in compensation for damages. In addition, Italy's Ministry of the Environment will spend $15.5 million on undisclosed environmental mitigation measures in the area.
Agip has recovered about 51,100 bbl of oily fluids from about 50,000 sq m of farmland. It will use fertilizers to biodegrade residual hydrocarbons trapped in the soil.
Officials said the rice fields nearest the blowout will take about 3 years to return to normal. At the periphery of the spill, rice crops should be back to normal next year.
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