Italy’s energy giants calculate new tax on profits

MILAN: Italian energy giant Enel estimated Monday that Italy’s recently announced measure to tax windfall profits of energy companies would be negligible, amounting to upwards of 10 million euros.

Prime Minister Mario Draghi said Friday the new 10 percent levy would target “the extraordinary profits” of energy producers, with the funds redistributed to “businesses and families who are in great difficulty”.

“The impact for us is zero. It’s something between 7 to 10 million euros,” Enel CEO Francesco Starace told Bloomberg TV Monday.

Forward contracts that guarantee fixed prices for two years means that Enel is protected from price fluctuations, he said, “so we don’t have benefits or extra benefits out of this volatility”.

Italian hydrocarbon group Eni, meanwhile, told AFP it was premature to estimate any new tax, but a spokesman said provisionally it could be at most “a few hundred million euros”.

Italy’s new energy tax will help finance a 4.4 billion euro package of measures designed to alleviate soaring energy prices for households and businesses. The 10 percent tax will be levied on extraordinary pre-tax profits made between October 2021 and March 2022, comparing them to profits in the same year-ago period. In 2021, Enel posted a net profit of 3.19 billion euros, while Eni reported net profit of 5.82 billion euros.

The Spanish government attempted to tax profits of major energy companies in September, before it backtracked months later in the face of opposition by the sector, which warned the measure would jeopardise future investment. Enel’s Starace called Monday for a mechanism to regulate prices for at least 12 months, calling the volatility of gas prices in Europe “totally out of control”.

Starace said Enel was in the process of stopping investment in Russia and reducing its exposure. The group, which is 23.5 percent owned by the Italian state, operates three thermal power plants and two wind farms in Russia.

Eni, in which the state controls 30.3 percent, said earlier this month it would sell its 50 percent stake in the Blue Stream gas pipeline, which it holds equally with Russian energy giant Gazprom, following the invasion of Ukraine by Moscow.