TRIESTE – The shareholders’ meeting of SIOT spa (Italian Transalpine Pipeline Company) of the Tal Group closed the 2020 financial statements with a profit of 1.6 million euros. In 2019, the profit was 2 million euros. Despite the unfavourable economic situation for the oil sector and the Covid pandemic, during the past year, the activity did not come to a standstill even in the presence of a noticeable drop in consumption. In the year of the pandemic, approximately 500 workers (including satellite activities) were not laid off, while more than 34 million were invested in current and capital account expenses. The value of production in the 2020 budget is set at 77.8 million (85.4 in 2019), and among the trends to be considered, also the use of higher tonnage oil tankers: 416 ships docked at the SIOT terminal, for a total of 37.6 million tons of crude oil unloaded in the year under review. “The volumes requested by the countries we supply (Central and Eastern Europe, including Bavaria) – explained Alessio Lilli, reconfirmed at the helm of the company – also following the lockdowns, have settled at a decrease of 10%”. Despite the sharp decline in the first quarter of 2021, SIOT, already starting from last April, has seen a substantial recovery in the reference markets, with an increase in crude oil requests that are now closer to the pre-Covid era.