The Reggio Calabria Section of the Administrative Court Regionale per la Calabria dismissed the action brought by the Società Petrolifera Gioia Tauro v the Authority of Port system of the Southern Tyrrhenian and Ionian Seas which had Rejected applications for concession submitted back in 1995 from the company for the construction in the port of Gioia Tauro of a Coastal storage for the storage of petroleum products of the Capacity of 40 thousand cubic meters organized in 14 tanks. The sentence of the TAR highlights, among other things, that "it appears, therefore, incontestable, as remarked by the defense of the administration defendant, that the applicant failed to comply with the checks of seismic risk and tides required 'for 20 years' by the Superior Council of Public Works".

Welcoming with satisfaction the pronouncement of the judges, the harbour authority has emphasized how the TAR reggino has considered 'The refusal to a private application which, through public funding pursuant to law No. 488 - sadly known in the Calabrian territory - would have liked to establish a settlement without public interest in an area with evident seismic risk, so much so that the complex preliminary investigation process it had never been perfected over the decades." "I have to say thank you - commented the president of the AdSP, Andrea Agostinelli - to Studio Zunarelli, to my offices and to the Authority maritime, which with patience and great professional ability have been able to reconstruct and highlight, during a period very long and very tortuous chronological, the reasons of the institution in opposition to an application that has always lacked supports instructors needed and contrary to port planning. A sentence in its own way "historic", articulated and highly motivated, which gives credit to the administrative judges of the TAR of Reggio Calabria'.

The Calabrian port authority has recalled that the story is born in the 1995, when the SPGT applied for concession to Port Authority of Reggio Calabria. After starting a wide preliminary activity, the Maritime Authority, in 1997, expressed itself with a partial acceptance and came to the stipulation of a act of submission which provided for the concession, by of public administration, of the possibility of starting the works, with the reservation of blocking them in the face of a negative outcome of the investigation, also defining the consequent and total assumption of responsibility by the private individual. Signed the interim act, in 1998, the Società Petrolifera Gioia Tauro began the work, while the administrative process, for competence, passed to the establishment of the Port Authority of Gioia Tauro. "Of course - recalled the Authority of Port system - being precisely in a phase of submission, the preliminary investigation process proceeds and sees the involvement of the Board Superior of Public Works that, proof of complexity of matter, between 1998 and 2001, is expressed with different pronouncements. Requires design integrations regarding structural deficiencies of the tanks (for which it was not foreseen the construction of a containment basin at the base of the tanks for the protection of the sediment) and the lack of design a berth for the tankers carrying mineral oils)'.

This led to 2000 with the first stop of work imposed by the Port Authority of Gioia Tauro which, in acquiring the resolutions of the Superior Council of Works Public, highlighted the lack of correspondence between what made and what was designed. But in the following year, with vote 449, the Superior Council of Public Works authorized the continuation of ground work only and not related work at the coastal approach, for which he requested the company the presentation of three technical studies. For the first he asked for study related to the extreme seismic risk that could be generated from the realization of the work, also considered the seismic belt one on which falls the port of Gioia Tauro. With the second study, requested the analysis of the consequent modification of the morphology of the coast, following a possible construction of a berth coastal. And finally, with the third study, the company was invited to analyze any change that could have undergone the nature morphological of mono-grain sands, due to their very liquefaction. "But in the face of analytical demands formulated by the Council of Public Works - has highlighted the AdSP - the company Società Petrolifera Gioia Tauro has never had anything product. Thus, in 2004, the Port Authority, in the In the meantime, it has been set up, it takes charge of the request for competence concession and requests to the Oil Company Gioia Tauro the resumption of work, stopped since 2003. After a careful examination of the affair, in 2006, the port authority issues its own decree of forfeiture for failure to carry out the work and for non-use of the concession. Decision, the latter, which is confirmed also by the Regional Administrative Court of Reggio Calabria which, consulted by the SPGT company, dismisses the relevant action. But in 2008, the Council of State overturns the sentence of the administrative court of Reggio and annuls the effects of the decree of the Port Authority. From that moment, however - it has remembered the AdSP - everything is silent and up to the 2017 no work is put in place for completion of the work'.

"The twist - it has recalled again the harbour authority Illustrating the stages of the story - arrives, after 14 years of detention, with the request for completion of the concession process by of the company, citing urgent reasons. In fact, given the failure to carry out the work, the MISE, owner of the public funding deriving from the well-known and unproductive law 488, requires the return of public money with revocation of the financing. Resumption of the investigation, the System Authority Port of the Southern Tyrrhenian and Ionian Seas updates the practice administrative and requires document production, already repeatedly asked to the company and never produced. In view of a possible and imminent loss of funding, the GSGT amends the Project reducing the tanks to ten, changing the destination of the activity, which would pass from storage to trading only, and assuming a point of approach along the north quay, destined also for multifunctional public use. At that point, The body establishes a technical table which, in evaluating the new proposal, expresses its negative opinion and submits it to the Port Committee which, in turn, endorses the decision of the institution. The last steps of the story, in 2021, see the Authority of Harbour System take the measure of rejection of the original application, both for lack of planning of the work that, entering the evaluation of merit, for absence of public interest of the undertaking compared to the current set-up operational port of call of Gioia Tauro. The final act - has emphasized with satisfaction the Port Authority - has seen, yesterday, the pronouncement of the TAR of Reggio Calabria which, with judgment no. 432/2023, gave full and crystalline reason to the port authority'.