A government proposal for joint oil exploration with Italy in disputed offshore zones cannot be implemented unless the areas of jurisdiction are clearly defined beforehand, according to the Italian Foreign Ministry.

Delineating the extent of both countries’ continental shelves was “a logical precondition” to the identification of oil reserves where joint oil exploration would make sense, the Italian Foreign Ministry’s press office said.

Malta has proposed joint oil exploration as a way out of the impasse that sees both countries making conflicting claims on an area to the southeast of Sicily and another zone to the west, closer to the Italian islands of Lampedusa and Pantelleria.

Foreign Affairs Minister Tonio Borg this week played down concerns over diplomatic protestations by Italy in August when the government issued an international call for tenders for oil exploration in the disputed areas.

The Italian Foreign Ministry said that, while Malta’s proposal for joint exploration was “constructive”, implementing it was “not possible without a prior definition of the respective areas of jurisdiction”.

“Italy has proposed restarting bilateral technical negotiations on the matter and is awaiting the Malta’s response,” the Italian ministry said, noting that it was important for neighbouring countries to work together in the energy sector.

The controversy between Malta and Italy was highlighted by the Financial Times this week that reported Rome’s intention to pass legislation delineating Italy’s exclusive economic zone over an area of the Ionian Sea, southeast of Sicily.

But the Italian Foreign Ministry yesterday explained that the legislative changes were intended to update laws enacted in 1967 delineating the continental shelf and bringing them in line with 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.

Earlier this year, Malta wrote a formal letter of complaint to Italy after the Italian government offered oil exploration licences around the islands of Pantelleria, Linosa and Lampedusa.

The UN convention defines the continental shelf as the seabed and subsoil of the submarine areas that extend beyond a coastal state’s territorial sea throughout “the natural prolongation of its land territory to the outer edge of the continental margin, or to a distance of 200 nautical miles”.

However, the definition is not a straightforward one because the convention enters into various matters such as the distance between the opposing coasts of neighbouring states and other geographical features.

Malta has similar territorial disputes with Libya to the southeast and Tunisia in the west. Two companies, Mediterranean Oil & Gas and Heritage Oil, hold oil exploration licences in Maltese waters.

In March 2008, Libya wrote to Heritage Oil warning the company not to do any drilling on the Medina Bank.

Malta drilled its first oil well onshore at Naxxar in 1954. It was dry but since then only 11 other wells were drilled despite various concessions granted to international oil companies. Only six of the 12 wells had oil and gas shows but none of them were found to be commercially viable.