Storage of natural gas

16.9 bn m³

Total storage
capacity

The total storage capacity in 2018, including strategic storage, amounts to 16.9 billion cubic metres: the largest capacity at the European level.

Through its subsidiary company Stogit, Snam is the largest storage operator in Italy, with a 98% share of total available storage capacity, and one of the largest operators in Europe.

The storage system makes it possible to compensate for the different requirements for gas supply and consumption: whilst supply has a substantially constant flow throughout the year, the demand for gas is concentrated mainly in the winter period. Storage also ensures that quantities of strategic gas are available to compensate for any lack of or reduction in non-EU supply or crises in the gas system.

The storage business makes use of integrated infrastructure comprising deposits, wells, gas treatment plants, compression stations and the operational dispatching system. Snam has nine storage concessions located in Lombardy (five), Emilia-Romagna (three) and Abruzzo (one). In 2015, the new Bordolano site started operating, gradually increasing the capacity offered by a total of 950 million scm.

Stogit supplies its storage services (peak modulation, uniform modulation, strategic, transporter balancing, mining, short-term conferral services and, as from 2018, the new Fast Cycle service¹⁴) to 91 operators on the basis of a Storage Code approved by the Autorità di Regolazione per Energia Reti e Ambiente (the Italian Environment and Networks Energy Regulatory Authority, or “ARERA”).

Thanks to the investments made into developing new fields and strengthen existing ones, the total storage capacity at the end of 2018, considering equal strategic storage, reached 16.9 billion cubic metres (+ 0.2 billion cubic metres compared to 2017), following the gradual commissioning of the Bordolano field.

In 2018, 21.07 billion cubic metres of natural gas was moved through the storage system, an increase of 1.15 billion cubic metres, or 5.7%, compared with 2017, following both the greater storage injections (+8.6%) and the greater deliveries from storage (3.1%).

On 28 October 2018, Stogit reached a modulation volume in stock held at the storage system of 11,874 million standard cubic metres of gas (MSm3), thereby booking a new all-time high, exceeding the previous level of 11,835 MSm3, reached on 31 October 2017. A result that attests to Stogit's ability to respond to both the needs of the national market as well as the contingent dynamics linked to international markets and policies, which can significantly modify demand by increasing the value of business with policies to support the security of supplies.