Anonima Petroli Italiana SPA, Rome, has applied for approval from the country’s Environment Ministry for an offshore regasification terminal with a capacity of about 4 billion cum/yr. The facility will be located in the Adriatic Sea in front of Anonima Petroli’s Falconara refinery. After converting the LNG, the company will inject the gas into Snam Rete Gas SPA’s grid. Construction will take just over 5 months. The news coincided with reports that Gas Natural could win environmental clearance for an 8 billion cum regasification terminal it wants to develop at Trieste in northern Italy. An official at the environment ministry confirmed that Gas Natural’s LNG facility had received positive opinions from a series of subcommittees at the ministry, and it said the project could be approved or a series of observations on the plans could be made. Earlier this month, Iride SPA and CIR SPA’s unit Sorgenia SPA said their planned 12 billion cum regasification terminal at Gioia Tauro, which won environmental approval in April, has been granted access to European Union funding. The Gioia Tauro terminal is due to go online in 2013. In early May, Shell and Italy-based ERG received local authorization to build their planned joint Ionio LNG import terminal in Sicily. The partners hope to begin construction of the import terminal in 2010 and to have it operational by 2013. Later in May, following a feasibility study completed early this year on its Triton LNG project 30km off Italy’s Marches region in the Adriatic Sea, Gaz de France signed a joint development agreement with Oslo-based Hoegh LNG for the design, construction, and operation of a floating storage and regasification unit vessel.