Regulations for business sectors

Tariff regulations for 2016

Coverage factors for revenues pertaining to the company GNL Italia SpA for the year 2016

With the ruling DIEU 7/2017, published on 7 June 2017, the Authority set the amount of the revenue coverage factor for the company GNL Italia for the year 2016 to € 15.6 million.

Tariff regulations for 2017

By means of Resolution 392/2016/R/gas, published on 14 July 2016, the Authority approved tariffs for the LNG regasification service for 2017.

The tariffs were set on the basis of the base revenue of €27.9 million. Effective revenue must take account of capacity actually allocated. The net capital invested as at 31 December 2015 (RAB) was around €0.1 billion.

The Authority also recognised the amount of roughly €0.34 million to GNL Italia to cover the increase in the IMU tax rate for the years 2013-2014.

Regulation transition period 2018-2019

Criteria for adjusting the tariffs for the natural gas transport service for the transition period in the years 2018 and 2019

By means of Resolution 653/2017/R/gas, published on 2 October 2017, the Authority approved tariffs for the LNG regasification service for 2018-2019.The resolution confirmed the main criteria of the regulation currently in force, with some modifications:

• The current asset β parameter was confirmed for the Transitional Period 2018-2019.The WACC value of 6.6% in real pre-tax terms is therefore confirmed for 2018, and will be determined for the year 2019 by updating the basic parameters;
• The investments made in the year t-1 will be included in the investment capital for the purpose of determining the tariffs for year t, replacing the 1% increase in the WACC to cover the regulatory time-lag. The 1% increase in the WACC covering the regulatory time-lag has been applied to investments made in the period 1 January 2014 – 31 December 2016;
• The current input-based incentive scheme (2% for 16 years for the upgrading of regasification capacity) will be applied to new development investments that come into service by 31 December 2017;
• An input-based incentive scheme (1.5% for 12 years) will be applied to investments for constructing new regasification capacities that will become operational in the years 2018 and 2019;
• The operating costs recognised in the fourth regulatory period will be updated according to inflation and a productivity recovery factor (X-factor);
• The current provisions relating to the revenue coverage factor are confirmed.

Tariff regulations for 2018

With Resolution 878/2017/R/gas, “Determination of the tariffs for the LNG regasification service of the company GNL Italia S.p.A., for the year 2018”, the Authority approved the recognised revenues for the regasification service for the year 2018 on the basis of the proposal presented by GNL Italia. The tariffs were set on the basis of a reference revenue of €26.9 million. The revenue coverage factor has been set at 64% of the reference revenue. As at 31 December 2017, the RAB for regasification activities was €107.9 million.

Other provisions

Integrated storage and regasification service

With regard to the contractual period from 1 April 2017 to 31 March 2018, the Ministry of Economic Development established, by the Decree of 7 December 2016 (Official Gazette, General Series, No. 295 of 19 December 2016), that a storage space equal to 1.5 billion cubic metres should be set aside for an integrated regasification and storage service, in order to allow industrial companies to procure LNG directly from other countries. The service involves the injection of amounts of regasified gas into storage, minus consumption and losses, by the end of the month after the same amount of LNG has been unloaded.

For the purposes of providing the service, Stogit will make a storage space available, equivalent to the assigned regasification capacity, and an injection capacity that allows quantities of the LNG delivered to be injected into storage and fed into the network by regasification terminals. Where necessary, physical management of the gas flows to be injected and stored will take place by acquiring additional injection capacity through the procedure for selling short-term capacity. The decree has also established that the Authority will define the competitive auction procedure for allocating capacities related to the integrated service, a reserve price that takes product value as well as market developments and the criteria for splitting the proceeds between the regasification companies and Stogit into account.

Ministerial Decree 13/02/2017 (Official Gazette, General Series No.46 of 24 February 2017) integrated Ministerial Decree 7/12/2016 by specifying the type of industrial companies to which the integrated regasification and storage service is aimed, and introduced a priority in the allocation of available injection capacity for transfer on a daily basis by the owners of this service, within the limits of the quantities needed to allow injection for storage of the quantities to be regasified.

Finally, the Decree provides that the Regulatory Authority for Energy Networks and the Environment (ARERA), when determining the reserve price for the purposes of assigning the service, can evaluate alternative ways of covering the transportation fees for entry and exit from storage facilities.

Regulatory reform regarding the allocation of LNG regasification capacity on the basis of market mechanisms (Auctions)

With Resolution 660/2017/R/gas, which was published on 2 October 2017, the Authority introduced market mechanisms for assigning regasification capacity, and integrated it into a Consolidated Law (Integrated text on the adoption of free access assurances to the “TIRG” liquefied natural gas regasification service – Annex A to Resolution 660/2017) the provisions concern the methods of access and provision of regasification services. In particular, for the assignment of capacity for annual/long-term duration, the TIRG introduced an open-ended type auction mechanism, similar to the provisions of the CAM Regulation for interconnection points with foreign countries, and for the assignment of infra – annual duration capacity for pay as bid auctions. The criteria for defining reserve prices for auction contributions will be defined by the Authority by a later provision.

Emergency Plan for the natural gas system

With Ministerial Decree 18/10/2017, the Ministry of Economic Development updated the Preventive Action Plan and the Emergency Plan for the natural gas system, taking into account the new European Regulation on the security of natural gas supplies (Regulation EU 2017/1938).

The Preventive Action Plan contains a description of the risk scenarios inherent to the safety of gas supplies in Italy, an analysis of the compliance of the gas system’s infrastructure, compliance with supplies to protected customers and the measures for improving the overall safety of the Italian gas system that can be developed over the short and medium term.

The Emergency Plan contains conditions for activating crisis levels (early warning, warning and emergency) by the Ministry of Economic Development, provides for non-market measures that can be activated in the event of a state of emergency (such as by way of example, maximising imports, reducing consumption by interruptible customers, using strategic storage, etc) and introduces solidarity measures in favour of the other states with which bilateral agreements have been signed.

With reference to regasification activity, among the non-market measures, the use of LNG warehouses with “peak shaving” functions was confirmed; this measure envisages that the Balancing Manager can use the LNG previously stored in the regasification terminal tanks to compensate for critical situations to cover the requirements of the gas system.

With Resolution 739/2017/R/gas, which was published on 6 November 2017, the Authority defined the procedures for managing the peak shaving service for the winter period of the 2017-2018 thermal year, as well as the measures to cover the charges related to the disbursement of this service by the regasification companies and the Balancing Manager, in continuity with the Thermal Year 2016-2017.