Basilicata pumps 84.8% of Italy's crude oil

Basilicata produced 84.8%¹ of Italy's crude oil and 30.4%¹ of its natural gas in 2025, on the ministry's UNMIG production dataset, from 2 oil concessions in a region of 525,281³ people.

84.8% of the crude, and Sicily is second at 6.2%

In 2025 Basilicata accounted for 84.8%¹ of Italian crude oil production and 30.4%¹ of natural gas, recalculated line by line from the UNMIG dataset published by the ministry.

The next region for crude is Sicily, at 6.2%. That is not a close second: it is a rounding error against the Lucanian share, and it means that when Italy talks about domestic oil it is talking about one region with 525,281³ residents.

For gas the picture is less lopsided but still large: 983,710,711¹ standard cubic meters out of 3,233,083,852¹ nationally.

2 concessions do almost all of it

The crude comes out of 2 concessions: Val d'Agri, operated by Eni, and Gorgoglione, the field known as Tempa Rossa, operated by TotalEnergies EP Italia. Four more concessions produce gas.

Six titles, then, for the great majority of a national energy account. Italy's oil geography is not a map of fields, it is a map of two valleys.

An honesty note on the numbers. The UNMIG dataset does not declare its unit in the header row; the order of magnitude points to kilograms for oil and standard cubic meters for gas, which is why the tonnage figures circulating elsewhere are approximations and the percentages are the sound part. Percentages hold whatever the unit turns out to be.

The national park is in the same valley

The Parco Nazionale dell'Appennino Lucano Val d'Agri Lagonegrese was established in 2007 and covers 68,996² hectares over 29 comuni, all of them in the province of Potenza.

Its authority sits at Marsico Nuovo, its legal basis is law 426² of December 9, 1998, and its statute was approved by ministerial decree on November 23, 2016. It is the only national park lying entirely within Basilicata.

The park and the country's main oil concession share the Val d'Agri. Those are two separate verified facts about the same valley, and the point of putting them next to each other is not to make an accusation but to describe what the ground actually holds.

525,281 people, 131 comuni, 2 provinces

Basilicata had 525,281³ residents on January 1, 2026, on the ISTAT estimate, distributed across 131³ comuni and 2 provinces, Potenza and Matera.

That is a small denominator for a large industrial number. Divide the national energy share by the population and you get a ratio no other Italian region comes close to, which is the reason the subject dominates regional politics here and is almost invisible outside it.

What this changes for a visitor

The 84.8%¹ is not something you can go and look at: the 2 concessions are industrial areas, there is no viewing platform, and nothing about the figure belongs on an itinerary.

What it does change is how you read the landscape on the way to Matera or to the Tyrrhenian coast. The Val d'Agri is a wide agricultural valley with 68,996² hectares of national park on and around it, and it is also the address of the country's main oil concession. Both descriptions are accurate at the same time.

It is also the answer to a question visitors ask in the region and rarely get answered straight: yes, the wells are real, no, they are not hidden, and the reason you have not heard about them is that Italian energy statistics are published as national totals. Split by region, the totals stop being abstract.

One more caveat on dates. These are 2025 production figures and the population is a January 1, 2026 estimate; both are annual series, and both move. The percentages are the durable part, because a region holding 84.8%¹ of a national output does not lose that position in one year.

For what else is in the region, see Basilicata.

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