MANAGEMENT AND USE OF REGASIFICATION CAPACITY
PRESS RELEASE
PRESS RELEASE
Antitrust opens inquiry into alleged abuse by ENI and GNL Italia
of a dominant position in the regasification sector
The Italian Competition Authority, at its meeting on 16 November 2005, decided to launch an investigation, on the grounds of alleged abuse of a dominant position, into the activities of ENI and GNL Italia (which is in its turn a subsidiary of ENI by way of Snam Rete Gas), in relation to conduct observed in the regasification of liquefied natural gas.
The Authority’s decision is based on a notification by the Electricity and Gas Authority, received last September, which points out anomalies in the management and use of the continuous-cycle regasification of liquefied natural gas at the terminal in Panigaglia (SP).
The Competition Authority considers that ENI and GNL Italia may have adopted a strategy aimed at making it impossible for third-party competitors of ENI’s to supply liquefied natural gas to the national market. The Panigaglia regasification terminal, managed by GNL Italia, is in fact the only facility through which it was possible at the time the events took place - and this is the case even today - to import liquefied natural gas into Italy.
Given this infrastructure bottleneck, it seems that in the heating years 2002/2003 and 2003/2004 ENI may have secured regasification capacity in excess of its own requirements, to the point of taking over the entire continuous-cycle capacity of the Panigaglia terminal. In fact, the continuous-cycle capacity provided to ENI by GNL Italia was greater than that which ENI used or had planned to use.
In the heating year 2003/2004, GNL Italia seems, furthermore, to have adopted discriminatory behaviour in favour of ENI, refusing access by third-party operators to the continuous-cycle regasification terminal: in August 2003, the entire continuous-cycle regasification capacity of the terminal was assigned to ENI, even though its forecast usage was much less.
In the Authority’s view, the conduct of ENI and GNL Italia seems to have prevented the supply to the wholesale natural gas market of quantities of natural gas, which may not have been very large, by independent operators.
Rome, 18 November 2005