ENTSOG South-North Corridor GRIP 2017 - Main Report

6.1 Introduction

Historically, the transmission flows through the TSOs’ relevant pipeline systems along the Corridor are oriented from north to south: from Belgium and the Netherlands into Germany, Switzerland, France and Italy. Nevertheless, forward-flows especially in the part for the Corridor towards Italy have recently shown a reduction trend  1) (annual import flows at IP between Italy and Swit- zerland decreased by 40% between 2014 and 2016). Looking at short-term flow be- haviour at the beginning of 2017, gas flows along the axis became more and more reactive to short term price signals generated by the main hubs of Northern and Southern Europe. The flows patterns registered in the first two months of 2017, characterised by exceptionally persistent cold conditions across Europe, show that Italian daily imports have hit a high near to 60 mcm/day on 11 January – when the premium between PSV and TTF reached a maximum of 7.6 €/MWh – and jumped down till near zero flows less than one month later (7 February, when the PSV pre- mium to TTF was down to 0.4 €/MWh, see Figure 6.1 for an example referred to the period January-February 2017)  2) .

Imports (GWh/d)

1,400

1,200

1,000

800

600

400

200

0

01/01/2017

08/01/2017

15/01/2017

29/01/2017

05/02/2017

19/02/2017

26/02/2017

Imports via Switzerland (Griespass)

Algerian Imports (Mazara del Vallo)

Libyan Imports (Gela)

Imports via Austria (Tarvisio / Arnoldstein)

Figure 6.1: Import flows to Italy at cross-border IPs during early 2017 (January cold snap and following period) (Source: Snam Rete Gas)

 1) Annual import flows to Italy at Griespass IP fell down from around 11.5 bcm (2014, year of the last GRIP edition) to a historical minimum of 6.7 bcm (2016, last available full year), recording a −40% in this time horizon.  2) According to market participants polled by ICIS, flows from North Africa – and potentially from other sources as the ones from Southern Corridor – could “bring a change to Italian import profiles. In particular, flow from northern Europe, which are the most flexible of Italy’s sources of supply, were expected to be most affected” (Source: ICIS ESGM, 17 March 2017).

South-North Corridor GRIP 2017 |

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