Italy's natural gas storage capacity is "too limited" and investments in the sector in recent years haven't been adequate to meet growing demand, Industry Minister Pierluigi Bersani said Thursday.
Speaking at a parliamentary hearing in Rome, Bersani said if this winter is "particularly cold" it may be necessary to dip into the country's strategic gas reserves.
Energy giant Eni SpA's Stogit unit holds almost all Italy's gas storage deposits. Eni Chairman Roberto Poli told lawmakers Tuesday Stogit's storage capacity will reach 13 billion cubic meters in 2010, which corresponds to around 13% of consumption.
Last year Stogit penciled in investments of around EUR2 billion to boost its capacity.
Italian power and gas company Edison SpA which has storage capacity of about 300 million cubic meters, last year announced capital expenditure of up to EUR550 million through 2012 to boost its capacity to 2.2 billion cubic meters.
According to Enel SpA, Italy's current gas storage capacity is about 14 billion cubic meters and the company sees this climbing to 19 billion cubic meters in 2015.
The former electricity monopoly is interested in developing storage sites and expects to have a capacity of about 500 million cubic meters by 2011, said Gianfilippo Mancini, head of Enel's energy management business area, on Oct. 26.