Our History

Snam (Società Nazionale Metanodotti) has provided integrated natural gas supply, transportation and sale services in Italy since 1941. It gradually put together an intricate system of methane pipelines, covering the whole of Italy, and built important pipelines that today allow the country to import from different areas: from Russia, the Netherlands, Algeria, the North Sea, and Libya. In 1971, Snam designed and built Italy’s first LNG regasification plant at Panigaglia, in the Gulf of La Spezia. Snam Rete Gas was incorporated on 15 November 2000 to house all of Snam’s Italian transportation, dispatching and LNG regasification activities. The corporate unbundling of these activities was decided pursuant to the Letta Decree (164/2000), which transposed the European Directive on the liberalisation of the gas market. On 6 December 2001, after the Electricity and Gas Authority issued a resolution establishing the criteria for defining transportation tariffs, Snam Rete Gas was listed on the stock exchange.

In 2009 the Company acquired 100% of Stogit, Italy’s largest natural gas storage field operator, and 100% of Italgas, the country’s biggest gas distributor. This added the other two regulated gas activities in Italy to Snam’s offering: storage and distribution. The June 2009 transaction turned Snam into a key integrated regulated gas activities operator, and the largest by regulatory asset base (RAB) in mainland Europe.

On 1 January 2012, the Company changed its name from Snam Rete Gas to Snam and transferred the gas transportation business to a new company, which inherited the respected Snam Rete Gas name. The ownership unbundling from Eni was completed on 15 October 2012 through the sale of approximately 30% of Snam’s capital to CDP Reti S.r.l., and Snam began its path toward growth in Europe. Having acquired 31.5% of Interconnector UK in 2012 as part of a joint venture with Fluxys, Snam (45%; 40.5% at 31 December 2015 following the entry of Credit Agricole Assurances (CAA) in the corporate structure of TIGF Holding), alongside the Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC (35%) and EDF (20%), successfully completed the acquisition of TIGF from Total in July 2013. TIGF is active in gas transportation and storage in south-west France, with a gas transportation network over 5,000 km and two storage fields. On 19 December 2014, the Company acquired from CDP Gas S.r.l. 84.47% (equivalent to 89.22% of the economic rights) of Trans Austria Gasleitung GmbH (TAG), the company that owns the Austrian section of the gas pipeline linking Russia and Italy. The objective of those transactions was to increase and enhance Snam’s industrial capacity in the integrated management of natural gas transportation and storage infrastructure. Snam’s international development continued with the acquisition of a 20% stake in Trans Adriatic Pipeline AG (TAP), the company responsible for developing the pipeline that will run from the Turkey-Greece border to Italy along the Southern corridor, enabling gas produced in Azerbaijan to reach European markets. Our investment in the project will consolidate the primary position of Snam and Italian infrastructure in improving competition between energy sources and securing gas supplies for Europe.

As of 7 November 2016, a corporate transaction was successfully completed that resulted in the separation of Snam from the national gas distribution business in Italy, with the principal purpose for the Snam Group being to strengthen and enhance its leadership in Europe in its core business: natural gas transportation, storage and regasification. Also in connection with the aforementioned transaction, in October Snam defined a new organisational structure, designed to be an instrument that enables focused management and control of the strategic guidelines of the plan and more efficient and effective operational management, including through the simplification of decision-making processes. Pursuant to the strategy of strengthening and enhancing leadership on the European gas market, on 16 December 2016 Snam, in a joint venture with Allianz, completed the acquisition from OMV of 49% of Gas Connect Austria GmbH (GCA), with an indirect equity investment of 19.6% in the company share capital for Snam.