Beginning on 1 October 2007 and over a period of two years, ENI must sell its competitors four billion cubic metres of gas at 26.45 eurocents/m², a lower than market price. This was decided by the Italian Competition Authority at its meeting on 6 March 2007, in accepting and rendering obligatory the commitments presented by the company, commitments which go well beyond the original version.

The procedure for allocating gas which, after the opinion of AEEG had been sought, allowed the Authority to conclude the investigation into ENI’s possible abuse of a dominant position without officially ascertaining a violation, will begin with the new “energy year” and will be by quota in batches of 40 million m² p.a. each. Specifically, 38 batches will be reserved for trading companies that purchase on behalf of user companies and 12 for companies that sell gas directly to domestic end-users.

In the Authority’s view, the definitive version of ENI’s commitments contains measures that satisfy the anti-competitive concerns that gave rise to the investigation because they make it possible for ENI’s competitors to ensure their gas supplies in the period until planned upgrades to the pipelines for imported TAG and TTPC come on stream (October 2008), thus helping to alleviate the effects of the current scarcity of gas in the Italian system. The economic conditions of this gas release, furthermore, are more favourable than market prices. This will allow Italy’s largest industrial users of gas to benefit from lower costs that are closer to those enjoyed by their European competitors.

On 16 November 2005, the Authority opened proceedings against ENI and its subsidiary GNL Italia Spa, which were subsequently extended to Snam Rete Gas, over the alleged abuse of a dominant position in the management and use of the LNG regasification plant at the Panigaglia terminal which it was claimed impeded access by downstream competitors.

On 9 November 2006, in the light of the new procedures stipulated in Article 14 ter of Law no. 248 of 4 August, ENI presented a commitment to sell 1.5 billion m² of natural gas, for one year. The quantity could have increased to a maximum of 2 billion m² (40 batches) depending on the average price, if allocation was done by way of an auction. For allocation by quota the price was set at 27.06 eurocents/ m².

Following results of a market test and based on the feedback received by the Antitrust Authority from the Energy Authority, ENI presented changes to its commitments, doubling the quantity of gas to be sold, prolonging the duration of the procedure by a year and reducing the sale price by 0.61 euros/m².

The Authority will oversee the carrying out of the commitments and reserves the right to reopen the proceedings ex officio should circumstances change with respect to any of the elements underlying the decision, or should ENI not abide by the undertakings given and made obligatory by the ruling.


Rome, 9 March 2007