Statistical Review of the Italian Gas Transmission System Operator under Conditions of the COVID-19 Pandemic and the Supply Restriction from the Russian Federation

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This study proposes that the coronavirus pandemic caused a crisis in industrial economies and public concern. The first outbreak of the coronavirus in Europe was in Italy. Today, in the European gas infrastructure, Italy is one of the leading countries transporting gaseous fuel to end consumers. This article provides an overview of the natural gas flows in the Italian gas infrastructure in relation to the state of the industrial economy at the time of the spread of the coronavirus in the country. The theoretical demonstration is detailed, and the introduction of the  natural gas flows in the Italian gas infrastructure in relation to the state of the industrial economy is clear. I believe it is feasible this research achievement is of great significance to improve the prediction of short-term load forecasting. However, there are still some shortcomings and deficiencies in this article. I will list the problems found in the process of manuscript review one by one, hoping to provide comments and suggestions to make this article more perfect.

1. The main body of the article has 6 pages. Too short an article can leave the whole article with insufficient theoretical basis, which is not conducive to the readers' grasp and understanding of the whole article. Therefore, I hope that the author can fullness the content of the article, increase the number of sentences in the article and grow the length of the article.

2. The article needs some pictures to support the table for argument, so that the reader can see the changes in the data at a glance, and can beautify the article, please add some pictures to support their own arguments.

3. The number of citations in this paper is insufficient, too few citations will lead to insufficient supporting evidence for the article, and the authors are requested to increase the number of citations.

4. There are also some irregularities in the format in the article.To start a new formula explanation needs to have two spaces before the paragraph; the interval between lines of some chapters is not uniform;Leave a two character space before restart a period.By modifying these details, the article can be more beautiful.

5. Since this topic is widely addressed in the technical literature, a stronger motivation should be given or the contribution of this work should be clearly stated. Above all, the originality of the paper needs to be further clarified. The present form does not have sufficient results to justify the novelty of a high quality journal paper. The depth of theory in this paper is not enough. Most of the contents discussed in this paper is well known or have been studied in other paper.

Author Response

1.Thank you for your comments. The author has tried to make the problem more specific.

2. Thank you for your attention. The author has made an effort to present the time series in the form of graph visualisations.

3. The author has tried to include more citations. However, the topic is still little researched by other authors. Practically, the topic of natural gas intake, pandemics and GAZPROM restrictions is little researched.

4.Thank you for your comments. The author has attempted to modify.

5.Thank you for your comments. The author has made an effort to present the news.

Reviewer 2 Report

The section “introduction” looks like the summary of the article, and it should be seriously improved. The introduction should present the research topic and get the reader interested. Furthermore, it should provide background and summarize existing research.

The article needs to be entirely reviewed. It is not clear which is the methodology that the author adopted to carry out the research. I suggest following the structure: introduction, state of art, methodology, results, conclusions.

Author Response

Thank you for your comments. The author has again modified the article and refreshed the forecasts with the current situation related to the reduction of natural gas supplies to Europe by GAZPROM.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

This study proposes that the coronavirus pandemic caused a crisis in industrial economies and public concern. The first outbreak of the coronavirus in Europe was in Italy. Today, in the European gas infrastructure, Italy is one of the leading countries transporting gaseous fuel to end consumers. This article provides an overview of the natural gas flows in the Italian gas infrastructure in relation to the state of the industrial economy at the time of the spread of the coronavirus in the country. The theoretical demonstration is detailed, and the introduction of the   natural gas flows in the Italian gas infrastructure in relation to the state of the industrial economy is clear. I believe it is feasible this research achievement is of great significance to improve the prediction of short-term load forecasting. However, there are still some shortcomings and deficiencies in this article. I will list the problems found in the process of manuscript review one by one, hoping to provide comments and suggestions to make this article more perfect.

1. About the first reply of the “Reviewer #1”, I am very happy that the author has expanded the content of the article to ten pages, which not only increases the theoretical basis of the article and enriches the content of the article, but also allows readers to better control and understand the entire article.

2. About the second reply of the “Reviewer #1”, the author uses the ARIMA method on page 8 to forecast gas supply to Italian end-users in 2024 and gas supply from LNG terminals in 2024, along with pictures to illustrate, which allows readers to transform the data At a glance, it also has a beautifying effect on the article.

3. About the third reply of the “Reviewer #1”, the author has increased the citations of the literature, which makes the research content of the article more comprehensive, and the methods and conclusions given are more convincing.

4. About the fourth reply of the “Reviewer #1”, formatting issues for articles have been improved, which makes articles look more canonical.

5. About the last reply of the “Reviewer #1”, the overallity of the article is better, allowing readers to have a smoother reading experience. At the same time, the author's English writing ability needs to be improved, and the translation of professional terms needs to be more appropriate.

Author Response

Thank you for your comments and patience. I hope I have amended and made corrections sufficiently.

1. About the first reply of the “Reviewer #1”, I am very happy that the author has expanded the content of the article to ten pages, which not only increases the theoretical basis of the article and enriches the content of the article, but also allows readers to better control and understand the entire article.

Thank you for your comments. Expanding the article has made it more interesting.

1. About the second reply of the “Reviewer #1”, the author uses the ARIMA method on page 8 to forecast gas supply to Italian end-users in 2024 and gas supply from LNG terminals in 2024, along with pictures to illustrate, which allows readers to transform the data At a glance, it also has a beautifying effect on the article.

The addition of visuals has embellished the article. Thank you for your attention.

1. About the third reply of the “Reviewer #1”, the author has increased the citations of the literature, which makes the research content of the article more comprehensive, and the methods and conclusions given are more convincing.

Thank you for your comments. The addition of citations and bibliography has definitely improved the article.

1. About the fourth reply of the “Reviewer #1”, formatting issues for articles have been improved, which makes articles look more canonical.

Thank you for your comment

1. About the last reply of the “Reviewer #1”,the overallity of the article is better, allowing readers to have a smoother reading experience. At the same time, the author's English writing ability needs to be improved, and the translation of professional terms needs to be more appropriate.

The author had a specialist correct the vocabulary

Reviewer 2 Report

·         The references are not relevant and not compliant with the standard. When a reference is a web site page the accessed date should be shown. More references should be added all along the document.

·         The introduction should provide background information regarding the main topic of the article and summarize the structure of the body. It should be improved.

·         Results are not discussed but just a list of pictures are shown to the reader.

·         The conclusions need to be improved by estimating the real increase or reduction in industrial consumption. Numerical results should be added.

Author Response

References are irrelevant and not compliant with the standard. When the reference is a web page, the access date should be shown. More references should be added along the whole document.

Thank you for your comments. Access dates have been added. I hope this is sufficient.

- The introduction should provide information on the main topic of the article and summarise the structure of the text. It should be improved.

Information on the main article has been added to the introduction. 

- Results are not discussed and only a list of pictures is shown to the reader.
The results are discussed better and visualisations are added.

- The conclusions should be improved by estimating the actual increase or decrease in industrial consumption. Numerical results should be added.

The results are estimated and figures are given.

Thank you for your time and relevant comments. The author has tried to make improvements.