Italy should not worry about
energy supplies this winter, even in the event of a Russian gas
crisis, as the country has diverse sources, ENI chief Claudio
Descalzi said Thursday.
"Italy has long diversified its supplies," the chief
executive officer of the Italian oil and gas giant said in
reporting third-quarter profits of 1.71 billion euros.
"We don't depend solely on Russia, we have re-gasifiers and
a good connection with North Africa," he said.
Descalzi also predicted that the price of oil would be
"stable for the next few months".
Tension between Russia and Ukraine over the ongoing
military crisis in pro-Russian eastern Ukraine and Kiev's
failure to pay off a billion-dollar debt to Moscow for its own
gas have raised fears of interruptions to supplies to Europe.
Meanwhile, ENI said its third-quarter profits were down 57%
over the same period in 2013, due to an usual gains last year on
the divestment of a 20% interest in the Mozambique discovery for
approximately three billion euros.
Net profits for the first nine months of 2014 were 3.68
billion euros, down 36.7% over 2013, Eni said in a statement.
Further, the company posted an operating cash flow of 3.98
billion euros for the period July-September, the highest
performing third quarter for the last five years.
Oil and gas production remained stable at 1.58 million
barrels of oil a day.
Descalzi said he was "very pleased" with the firm's cash
generation, and said the third-quarter and nine-month profits
posted by the Italian oil and gas giant "exceeded expectations
by 30%".
"It has hit the highest level of the last five years in
spite of continued weakness in the trading environment...Our
exploration is continuing to deliver extraordinary results which
will drive future growth in our upstream portfolio".
Company stocks rose more than 2% during trading Thursday
but closed a bit lower, show a gain of 1.47% to 16.58 euros on
the Milan bourse.
"Today's results are extremely positive, they surprised the
market," said the CEO, who attributed the results to "major
efforts made to renegotiate gas contracts with (Norwegian
multinational oil and gas company) Statoil, (Russian energy
company) Gazprom and Algeria".
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © Copyright ANSA