Projects sponsored by Snam, Eni and Terna get priority status from EU

MILAN (Reuters) -The European Commission has included several energy initiatives sponsored by Italy's Snam, Eni and Terna in a new list of Projects of Common Interest (PCI) published on Tuesday.

Projects included in the PCI list have a fast-track permitting process and can get access to European funding from the so-called Connecting Europe Facility.

"The two projects in which Snam is involved have

been included in the sixth list of energy Projects of Common Interest (PCIs) announced today by the European Commission," the Italian gas grid operator said in a statement.

The two initiatives supported by Snam are a pipeline for hydrogen between Italy, Austria and Germany dubbed the SoutH2 Corridor and a carbon capture and storage hub offshore Ravenna known as the Callisto Mediterranean C02 Network.

The SoutH2 Corridor involves Snam together with the Transmission System Operators Trans Austria, Gasleitung (TAG), Gas Connect Austria (GCA) in Austria, and bayernets in Germany, while the Callisto includes the Carbon Capture and Storage project in Ravenna currently being developed by Eni and Snam, the gas grid operator said.

(Reporting by Francesca Landini in Milan, Julia Payne in Brussels, editing by Gavin Jones and Sharon Singleton)