A year end with a bang for gas storage in Italy. As Snam announces, the natural gas stocks at 31 December 2022 in the storage facilities of the subsidiary Stogit amount to 9.3 billion cubic meters, to which must be added the 4.5 billion cubic meters of strategic storage. A quantity higher by approximately 2.6 billion compared to the stock of 6.7 billion cubic meters recorded at the end of December 2021. In percentage terms, the note reads, the fill rate is approximately 84% compared to 68 % of a year ago. 70% of the volume of gas is found in the sites of the Po Valley while the remaining 30% in the Abruzzo field of Fiume Treste (Ch).
In view of the continuation of the winter season, this is a very positive result, underlines Snam, made possible not only by the favorable weather conditions and the National Consumption Containment Plan but determined and supported by the actions implemented by Snam to optimize streams. In particular, based on the preliminary data for the month of last December, gas consumption in the fourth quarter of 2022 amounted to approximately 16.9 billion cubic metres, with a saving of 5.6 billion cubic meters compared to 22, 5 billion in the corresponding quarter of 2021. An outcome that can also be attributed to lower industrial demand and the switch of some utilities to alternative fuels to natural gas.