European Critical Infrastructures include physical resources, services, information technology facilities, networks and infrastructure assets, which, if disrupted or destroyed would have a serious impact on the health, safety, security, economic or social well-being of the Member States. The gas distribution network is a critical infrastructure and its failure can cause damage to structures and injury to people. The aim of this paper is to analyze and then assess the risk of the Italian high pressure natural gas distribution network. The paper describes an application of a methodology for quantitative risk assessment. Failure frequencies considered in risk calculation were found in the European Gas pipeline Incident data Group (EGIG) database, whereas consequences were computed as a function of pipe diameter and operating pressure for each section of the network. The results of this quantitative risk assessment is the determination of local and social risks for the Italian North East Area. (C) 2014 Published by Elsevier Ltd.