Safety in the business culture

The gas that Snam transports every day meets the energy needs of businesses and households. This means that customers and consumers place great emphasis on the value of accessible prices and a high-quality, uninterrupted service.

This also has to be the primary goal of any entity responsible for developing and managing network infrastructure. But Snam is well aware of the other value that is also a priority for everybody: being able to use gas wherever necessary, at home and in business, with the guarantee of safety for both people and property.

Snam has therefore always put safety first, making it the linchpin of its corporate culture and rooting it primarily in people, encouraging the growth of technical and operational knowledge so that gas represents a safe and reliable energy source for everyone.

Against this background, service security, continuity and quality are intrinsically linked and represent a shared value.

During the year, Snam was also a key adviser to the government on the preparation of the National Energy Strategy document and a major player in the strategic critical infrastructure project managed by the civil protection department of the Lombardy Region. The ultimate aim of this project is to define operating procedures aimed at limiting the impact of severe weather or man-made events on energy, road, transportation and telecoms infrastructure.

Network oversight and maintenance GRI - G4: PR1

During a normal year, plants and pipes periodically undergo inspections and maintenance operations.

In the transportation segment, for example, the course of the pipelines is inspected regularly on foot, by land vehicles and by helicopter fly-overs to detect potentially dangerous situations caused, for example, by third-party work near the pipelines. Similarly, any land slippage at specific points of the route is also kept under surveillance. The integrity of the pipes is also monitored by inserting intelligent devices inside them to identify any defects (intelligent pigs).

The 11 gas compression stations situated along the 32,000 km of pipeline network are controlled directly by the recently renovated dispatching unit at San Donato Milanese, which is responsible for ensuring that pressure levels are sufficient to meet demand.

The dispatching unit is a strategic infrastructure that manages gas flows in the national transportation network: its 24/7 operations room monitors and remotely controls the main pipelines and the compression stations of the Italian gas system. A 46-m² video wall gives operators an overview of the national gas transportation network, showing the major points of interest and related information.

The dispatching unit regulates and controls the national gas transportation system to ensure that it functions safely, reliably and efficiently, and it also oversees balancing on the basis of actual gas demand, which can fluctuate significantly on a daily and seasonal basis.

In distribution, Snam regularly undertakes inspections and maintenance operations at its gas reduction plans, and continually checks the condition of the steel pipes: in 2013, approximately 10,079 significant points on the network were monitored, and approximately 29,000 specific measurements were taken. More than 23,000 km of network were inspected.

Preventative checks on the reliability of the distribution system by seeking atmospheric gas dispersions is an important source of information used to decide what action to take. To make the otherwise odourless and colourless gas detectable when it is dispersed, Snam uses odorisation plants equipped with innovative automated injection systems, which measure out quantities of odoriser according to the volumes of gas distributed.

Infrastructure safety: drill programmes

Within the infrastructure safety framework, Snam and the operating companies that it controls pursue their own improvement targets, including by taking part in institutional drill programmes.

In 2013, the main national drills in which Snam took part related to earthquake and volcanic risks with submarine involvement, giving rise to tidal waves. These involve information exchange and the sharing of methods and practices, with the institutions overseeing infrastructure safety and the companies providing essential services for the welfare of the country. In this context, Snam collaborates with the Italian Department of Civil Protection, with the aim of strengthening the management model for emergency response in procedural, organisational, training and operational terms.

In the procedural and organisational domain, Snam has adopted the revisions to the national assistance programme for earthquake risk, which are highly relevant to the restoration of infrastructure and networks required for continuity in economic and productive activity and the return to normal conditions in the country. Snam also structured this approach in more detail when the national emergency plans for the active volcanic areas in Campania were revised and adjusted its own operating practices, impact assessment procedures and the relative mitigation measures.

In June, Snam took part in the training initiative organised by the Department of Civil Protection on natural risks in Campania for transportation companies and companies providing essential services, with the aim of adopting emergency plans relating to volcanic risks.