SOGIN

Following the 1987 referendums on nuclear power, the Italian government was required to decommission the country's remaining nuclear plants. SOGIN was conceived as the company to undertake this work. SOGIN was created on 1 November 1999 and took ownership of the closed Caorso, Enrico Fermi, Garigliano, Latina nuclear power plants from the state-owned electricity company, ENEL. Initially, SOGIN was created as a part of the ENEL group, but, following the passing of Legislative Decree no. 79, the so-called Bersani decree of 16 March 1999, which marked the beginning of the liberalization of the Italian electricity sector, it was decided to split the group. On 3 November 2000, the SOGIN shares were transferred to the Ministry of Economy and Finance. In 2003, SOGIN also took responsibility decommissioning ENEA sites like EUREX, the OPEC research reactors in Cesano, and the ITREC plant in Rotondella.

On 16 September 2004 SOGIN became a corporate group with the acquisition of 60% of the shares in Nucleco SpA (the remaining 40% being owned by ENEA). In 2005, SOGIN acquired the nuclear enrichment plant at Bosco Marengo, and, in 2012, the company started a three-year programme to decontaminate the boxes that had been used to store plutonium-contaminated gloves up to 1986. SOGIN launched the Observatory for the Closure of the Nuclear Cycle (Osservatorio per la Chiusura del Ciclo Nucleare) with the Fondazione per lo Sviluppo Sostenibile (Foundation for Sustainable Development) in 2014 as an independent monitor of the social, environmental and technical aspects of nuclear sites. SOGIN was originally tasked to completely decommission the Italian nuclear plants by 2019, but it is likely to be 2036 before the task is complete.