Technical investments

Technical investments in 2018 totalled 99 million euro, a decrease of 2 million euro (-2.0%) compared with the previous year (101 million euro), and refer to the development of new fields and upgrading of capacity (26 million euro) and maintenance and other investments (73 million euro).

The main investments in the development of new fields and upgrading of capacity (26 million euro) primarily concerned the following initiatives:

• Minerbio (16 million euro) for activities related to installing the new TC7 compression unit;
• Cortemaggiore (6 million euro) for the start-up of drilling, with the development of the station and supply of materials;
• Sabbioncello (1 million euro), for the purchase of material related to the installation of the new ESD/PSD safety system.

Investments in maintenance and other (73 million euro) mainly relate to the rationalisation of the Cortemaggiore plants (10 million euro), the work over of the Sabbioncello shaft (6 million euro) and IT and property activities (totalling 16 million euro).

Investment breakdown by type (% of total investments)

Thanks to the significant investments made to develop new deposits and upgrade existing ones, Stogit exceeded the previous maximum quantity of gas deposits in its storage systems, thereby increasing its volume and peak capacity. Total storage capacity as at 31 December 2018, including strategic storage, was 16.9 billion cubic metres (+0.2 billion cubic metres compared with 2017, made available by the new Bordolano deposit), of which 12.4 billion cubic metres related to available capacity almost fully allocated for the thermal year 2018-2019 (equal to 99.7% of the available capacity) and 4.5 billion cubic metres related to strategic storage (unchanged compared with thermal year 2017-2018, as established by the Ministry of Economic Development by means of the notice dated 06 February 2018)¹⁸.