Snam is the largest operator in Europe managing integrated infrastructure in the regulated gas sector. It is present in natural gas transportation, regasification, storage and distribution, and it boasts the main gas infrastructure within Italy.
Snam has the capability to execute major local and cross-border works suitable for ensuring that the country has secure gas supplies and full-capacity storage facility operation thanks to its unique knowledge of managing an integrated national gas system. A clear and transparent regulatory framework which is amongst the most advanced in Europe also allows the Company to pursue a challenging strategy aimed at the creation of value, while at the same time maintaining a low risk profile.
Change in the reference scenario
In transposing the principles of the European Union’s Third Energy Package1, Snam carried out an important reorganisation project. This process led, among other things, to the transfer of the natural gas transportation, dispatching and metering business to a new company which, due to the brand notoriety of the main national operator in the sector, took the name of Snam Rete Gas; its structure meets the requirements of independence provided for by the ITO (Independent Transmission Operator) model which the Italian government chose in adopting the European Directive.
In this context, the corporate company, known simply as Snam, wholly owns four operating companies (Snam Rete Gas, GNL Italia, Stogit, and Italgas), focused on managing and developing their respective businesses: transportation and dispatching, regasification, storage and distribution. Snam performs strategic guidance, direction, coordination and control functions, and it renders services in accordance with unbundling rules. The Company and its subsidiaries continue to engage in combined management of natural gas transportation, distribution, storage and regasification activities in compliance with the current regulatory framework, preserving the efficiency achieved after the acquisition of Italgas and Stogit, which took place in 2009. The rules of governance have also been amended, ensuring continued alignment with international best practices, the principles of the Code of Corporate Governance of Borsa Italiana, and Consob recommendations.
With this structure, Snam has chosen to continue to grow and create value, not just in Italy but, going forward, in Europe as well. The integrated infrastructure system that characterises it makes Snam a unique player, and this generates the best conditions for seizing the opportunities offered by the harmonisation of rules and markets with the transposition of the EU’s Third Energy Package. Snam thus plays a key role. The changing scenario requires a new effort from the Company: the creation of a new, strong and distinctive corporate identity. Therefore, Snam has completed its path toward identifying and strengthening a value system in line with the new corporate structure. From industrial network to values network: skills, efficiency, soundness, reliability, innovation and sustainability. It is on these structural features that the identity of the new Snam is founded.
1. On 14 August 2009, the Official Journal of the European Union published the “Third Energy Package,” a series of measures containing provisions intended to modify the regulatory structure of the European internal energy market for purposes of strengthening integration and improving functioning.
