MILAN: Italian energy giant Eni said Friday that its profits sky-rocketed in the second quarter as energy prices soared in the wake of the Ukraine war.
Eni said in a statement that bottom-line net profit increased 15-fold to 3.81 billion euros ($3.9 billion) in the period from April to June.
Second-quarter sales were up 94 percent, the statement said.
Both figures exceeded analysts’ expectations.
At an underlying level, too, operating profit more than doubled to 5.84 billion euros, “driven by the favourable commodity price environment, strong refining margins and the focus on cost management”, Eni said.
Like the rest of the sector, Eni has profited from soaring oil and gas prices linked to the global recovery after the coronavirus pandemic, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The only shadow on the second-quarter results was that Eni’s production of hydrocarbons fell by one percent to 1.57 million barrels a day.
The company said this was primarily due to “force majeure events in Libya, Nigeria and Kazakhstan”.
Eni’s rivals have had a similarly bumper second quarter, with French giant TotalEnergies reporting a net profit of $5.7 billion, Britain’s Shell reporting $18 billion, and Norway’s Equinor almost $6.8 billion.
For the whole of 2022, Eni confirmed it was aiming for operating profit of “at least” 1.2 billion euros.
The company has started to balance its portfolio with the increased development of renewable energies, and is committed to cut greenhouse gas emissions of its energy products by 80 percent by 2050.
In June, Eni postponed plans to list on the Milan stock exchange its renewable energy and retail division, known as Plenitude, due to “volatility and uncertainty” on the financial markets.
The initial public offering “has been postponed but remains our intention,” chief executive Claudio Descalzi said.
Plenitude was born out of the merger in April 2021 of Eni’s retail gas and electricity division with its renewable energy unit.
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