Italy's Eni sees Q3 gas sales drop 1% YOY on lower European volume

Italy's Eni said Oct. 25 its global gas and LNG sales volume dropped in the third quarter by 1% year over year to 10.8 Bcm on the back of lower volumes in Europe outside of Italy.

The total included an LNG volume of 2.2 Bcm, up 10% year over year, it said.

Italian gas sales, including LNG, rose 2% year over year to 5.1 Bcm, Eni said, driven by higher wholesale volumes.

In the European markets, gas volumes decreased by 2% year over year to 4.8 Bcm as a consequence of lower sales in France, the UK and Benelux, offset by higher sales in Germany, Eni said without providing a breakdown.

The spread between the Italian PSV and Dutch TTF spot prices widened three-fold in annual comparison to Eur3/MWh, the company noted, with an average Q3 price of Eur38/MWh in Italy, up 13% year over year.

The average price for the first nine months was down 21% year over year at Eur34/MWh, ahead of the company’s estimated full-year price of Eur32/MWh.

Eni’s gas sales to markets outside Europe increased 30% year over year to 0.8 Bcm.

Trading environment

The Global Gas and LNG unit’s adjusted net profit jumped 95% year over year to Eur146 million ($157 million), Eni reported, citing a “more favorable trading environment and the positive outcome of a negotiation/settlement.”

The company’s upstream gas production increased 1% year over year to 4.6 Bcf/d in Q3, buoyed by the inclusion of Norway’s Neptune from January and the ramp-up of Coral LNG in Mozambique.

The average realization price for its gas was $7.34/Mcf, up 8% year over year. Around 32% of its gas volume was linked to crude oil benchmarks and 18% based on European hub prices with the remainder sold at fixed prices, Eni said.

During the period, Eni started production at the Argo-Cassiopea field offshore Sicily, which is expected to ramp up over winter to reach a peak production of 1.5 Bcm/year and will feature net zero scope 1 and 2 emissions.

The gas produced is being fed into the national grid via a 60 km subsea pipeline connected to the Gela processing plant.

In its renewable business, Eni’s installed capacity was 3.1 GW at the end of Q3, up 0.6 GW from the same point in 2023. The company said it expects to reach 4 GW by year-end.

The longer-term targets are more than 8 GW by 2027 and over 15 GW by 2030.

Renewable output was 1.2 TWh in the quarter, up 20% year over year, while thermal plant output from its gas-fired plants in Italy was 5.3 TWh in the quarter, up 3% year over year.

Platts assessed the Italian clean spark spread for a standard 50% efficient gas-fired power plant in November at Eur10.95/MWh Oct. 24, S&P Global Commodity Insights data showed.