ENI S.p.A. Q2 2026 Earnings Call

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Eni's 2026 first half results conference call hosted by Mr. Claudio Descalzi, Chief Executive Officer. For the duration of the call, you will be in listen-only mode. However, at the end of the call, you will have the opportunity to ask questions by pressing star and 1 on your telephone. I am now handing you over to your host to begin today's conference. Thank you. Thank you. Good morning.

Good afternoon, for being with us today. Our second quarter and first half result clearly reflect our successful execution of the strategy and the objectives we have consistently communicated. In Q2, Eni generated EUR 5.4 billion pro forma EBIT and EUR 2.3 billion net income, both doubling year-on-year, and EUR 4.5 billion of cash flow from operation, up over 60%. This growth significantly outpaced the increase in Brent prices over the same period, demonstrating the strength of our operating leverage and our ability to absorb a highly unfavorable foreign exchange environment. Looking at the first half of the year, we deliver a remarkable 40% year-on-year increase in pro forma EBIT. Reported gearing remained stable quarter-on-quarter while pro forma gearing declined to 10%, reaching the lower end of our target range.

Overall, this performance reflects excellent operational execution, effective capture of market opportunities, and the continued delivery of our consistent strategy. The first half of 2026, marked by the emergence of a new crisis in the Gulf, has once again exposed our industry to extraordinary volatility. Eni has demonstrated its ability to effectively mitigate external pressures. Our resilience is underpinned by a broad geographic diversification, strong operational efficiency, and the deployment of proprietary technologies. At the same time, our robust organic growth continues to be fueled by our outstanding exploration success and a deep pipeline of developing opportunities. Most importantly, our growth is increasingly multidimensional. While exploration and production remains our highly competitive core business, we are rapidly scanning attractive growth platforms right across the energy value chain. Specifically, I would like to highlight three key pillars of our strategy. First, diversification. We are well-diversified across the geographies, businesses, and technologies.

While some of our operations have been affected by events in the Middle East, the overall impact has not been material. Actions taken in 2026 have further strengthened this diversification, increasing our exposure to Asia and South America, expanding our transition-related businesses, and opening new opportunity in trading activities, critical minerals, and stationary batteries. Second, growth. We continue to deliver a unique double engine of growth, combining industry-leading organic upstream production with a rapid parallel expansion in low-carbon energy. Third, financial performance. We continue to generate outstanding financial results with over 60% of our original plan targets already met year-to-date. Also, thanks to the fast time to market of our projects.

Our satellite model, increasingly acknowledged as a material positive differentiator for Eni, continues to de-risk the balance sheet, attracting third-party capital to fund our expansion across new technologies and geographies. Turning to upstream, we delivered an outstanding 8% year-on-year reported production growth. In the first half of the year or 11% underlying, we fully offset Middle East volume losses thanks to the efficient execution of major operating projects, including Agogo in Angola, Amoca in Mexico, Congo LNG Phase 2, as well as a strong contribution from our Eni. This growth is entirely organic and reflects investment and exploration successes achieved over several years. As discussed during Q1, our unique 2023 exploration performance has added over 1 billion barrels of new resources supported by credible development pathways.

This success is driven by key discoveries, including Algaita-01 in Angola, Murene South-1X in Côte d'Ivoire, two offshore gas discoveries near Bahr Essalam in Libya, the initial discovery offshore Egypt, and the giant Geng North-1 gas condensate discovery in Indonesia. We have further refreshed our future pipeline with new acreage position in Uruguay, Timor-Leste, and The Gambia. Furthermore, to secure our medium-term production capacity during the plan period, we have sanctioned 3 major projects. Baleine Phase 3 in Côte d'Ivoire, Geng North in Indonesia, and Cronos in Cyprus. Beyond these projects, we are reshaping our global footprint through the build-up of two diversified regional clusters. In Asia, the Searah Business combination, completed in June, created our largest satellite platform to date and established a leading player in the Pacific region. Initial production exceeded expectations, surpassing 300,000 barrels per day, and backed by 3 billion barrels reserves upside.

It has a clear path to approach 800,000 barrels per day by 2030. In the Americas, we continue to advance significant opportunities in Argentina and Venezuela, which together with our existing position in Mexico and the U.S., represent an increasingly important component of our upstream portfolio. In detail, in Venezuela, we are finalizing a negotiation for new contracts for Junin 5 and Corocoro. Simultaneously, we have finalized the gas export agreement for the giant Perla field. Collectively, our footprint in Venezuela unlocks an outstanding growth potential more than 5.5 billion barrels of recoverable resources. Meanwhile, in Argentina, our newly consolidated asset hold an exceptional 25 TCF of gas, equivalent to 4.3 billion barrels of recoverable resources, plus an additional 500 million barrels of condensate, bringing total gross recoverable resources in the country to 4.8 billion barrels.

The new material initiatives in Argentina, Venezuela, East Asia, together with our African portfolio, provide absolute confidence in our long-term trajectory. As a result, we now expect production growth to be around 4% CAGR guidance through 2030, while we are also developing a unique visibility on a further wave of growth opportunities beyond 2030. Importantly, through portfolio high grading and strategic moves like our recently announced Mercuria joint venture, this volume growth will translate directly into cash flow, underpinning our primary target, growing our upstream free cash flow per barrel by more than 50% by 2030. Our Q2 results demonstrate Eni's ability both to capture favorable market conditions and to enhance underlying profitability. E&P delivered outstanding production growth and successfully captured the benefit of the market environment, with particular strong contributions from Norway and Congo.

GGP generated pro forma EBIT of EUR 0.47 billion, confirming better-than-expected performance and supporting a further increase in our EBIT guidance to over EUR 1.4 billion. We also see additional upside potential in the second half, supported by current pricing conditions and inventory replenishment dynamics. Plenitude and Eni together generated EUR 607 million of pro forma EBITDA in the quarter and EUR 1.13 billion in the first half, supporting an increase in full-year guidance to EUR 2.6 billion compared with the original EUR 2.4 billion. Within transformation businesses, refinery utilization recovered following the major turnaround activities completed during the first half. Versalis also continued to reduce losses in line with the improvement plan, also supported by better market conditions. Contribution from associates benefited from supporting macroeconomic conditions and the consolidation of Searah from June onward.

The first half tax rate of approximately 39% was below our full-year guidance, reflecting the impact of high grading upstream production, the accounting impact of satellite, the transition toward the more sustainability diversified overall income mix, and the benefit of our restructuring and performance improvement initiatives. Cash flow from operation remains strong, supported by dividend contribution from associates and continued working capital improvement. Operational working capital generated a positive contribution in the quarter. Sorry. We continue to expect an overall reduction throughout 2026. Capital expenditure amounted to EUR 1.8 billion in Q2, and we continue to expect approximately EUR 7 billion of gross CapEx for the full year, while we also reduced the net figure to below EUR 5 billion. We paid the fourth and final quarterly dividend related to 2025 and repurchased EUR 600 million of shares. Since 2021, outstanding shares have been reduced by around 18%.

In light of the raised guidance for CFFO to EUR 15 billion, we now expect to repurchase EUR 3.4 billion of shares in the 2026 program, representing a combined yield to our investor of around 10%. Pro forma gearing at the quarter end remain at 10%, the lower end of our target range, and we expect reported gearing to converge toward that level by year-end. In conclusion, the combination of our upstream positioning and growth outlook, our integration across the entire energy value chain, the increasing value creation from our transition businesses, and our strong financial foundations position us competitively in a world that has entered a new energy paradigm. It is confirmed by the revised guidance for most of our businesses that translate into increased distribution. Underlying oil and gas production growth is now seen exceeding 5% above the upper end of the previous range.

GGP pro forma EBIT is raised to over EUR 1.4 billion, plus 40% compared with the initial level. Eni pro forma adjusted EBITDA is revised up by 18% at EUR 1.3 billion. At a revised scenario of $85 per barrel Brent, adjusted CFFO is expected at EUR 15 billion, determining a higher buyback of EUR 3.4 billion. The new buyback represents 127% increase over the initial guidance of EUR 1.5 billion at the budgeted cash flow. The potential special dividend related to oil price above $90 per barrel or gas price and SERM margin more than 50% of the original budget assumptions will be determined in the last quarter. In this environment, Eni is in one of the strongest position in its history. That conclude my remark, and together with my colleagues from Eni management team, I am ready to take your question. Thank you. Thank you. This is the conference operator.

Please press star 1 for your questions and star 2 to remove yourself from the question queue. I now leave the floor to Mr. Jon Rigby for the Q&A session.

Thank you. Thank you everybody for attending. We're going to go through this in polling order again to ask you to keep your questions to 2, if that's okay, and we'll aim to finish the call around the top of the hour. We'll start with Alejandro Vigil at Santander. Alex. Yes. Thank you for taking my questions.

The first question is about the guidance about the production. Definitely this year looks very strong also with the Seadrill consolidation. If you can give us some numbers about the outlook of 2030 of production, just to have some indication of the range of potential volumes that year. The second question is about the European natural gas market. You mentioned that in the guidance for global gas and LNG, you are not including any upside from the current situation. If you can elaborate about how you see the second half of the year. Thank you. Thank you. For production outlook, I think Guido will take over for the question and where is Okay.

Cristian is there for give you an update on the gas in the second half, as you asked.

On production, of course, you notice that we have improved our guidance in 2026. Originally, we provided a range of 3%-4% growth underlying, which now we increased to 5%. This is coming from a higher contribution from some country like Libya, Mexico, Kazakhstan, and of course, the anticipation of the business combination in Seadrill. For the 2030, we have also provided a stronger support to our originally provided guidance. You have noticed that we have accelerated some major FID. We have included some project which initially were beyond 2030 and that we have now anticipated to the 2030 plan.

Just to give some more color on our production. If we look at all the projects that were in our slide, we have 54 projects. They're coming from our organic growth. Our exploration is something that is coming from the exploration we performed in the last 10 years. Most of these projects are already in a very advanced, some we talk the FID, some are really in execution, but most of them are with the POD done. That is going to give the 4%, Guido said, by 2030 and is going to confirm a solid growth also after 2030.

When it comes to the gas market scenario for the second half, I would say our scenario is currently in line with the forward curves, as you can see. I think we can say that the situation is fairly fragile given the geopolitical situation and the delay in the replenishment of the European storage. We think that depending clearly on the evolution of the situation, we can see upside potential in terms of volatility and flat price numbers when it comes to the second half. I think the idea is that we are ready, clearly with our assets to take advantage of that situation.

That's it. Thanks, Alex. We can now move on to Biraj Borkhataria at RBC.

Biraj, are you there? The first was just on Venezuela, which you touched on in your initial remarks.

There were some reports recently that the government had presented new terms to the industry. I'm just wondering if you thought those were sufficient to drive investment beyond 2027 and 2028, I'm thinking more on the oil side than the gas side. The second question is just on refining. The strength in the downstream has been the big theme this quarter. I know you don't have a huge amount of exposure to this, but I just noticed your indicator was down quarter-on-quarter. I guess, we're looking at the cracks on the screen, which are very strong. Could you just help me understand why you're not able to take advantage of that and how we should think about that going to the second half? Thank you. [Foreign language] Venezuela, now if maybe Guido can complement what I'm going to say.

Venezuela, we are in negotiation. I think very open, clear, and transparent, very good negotiation. We are discussing very well with the minister, with PDVSA. Clearly also with our American partners and we have a big potential, as we said. We have one of the best block, Junin 5. We have Corocoro. We have Perla, for which we already signed a contract. That had been very quick in a couple of months ago, we signed a contract for export. That is very good because it's going to complement our domestic production, and that give even more breath and more space for future investment.

As you know, we already developed most of the infrastructure for the second phase, so we can really go fast for the second phase and then put in place a floating LNG for export. Up to now, Venezuela is responding very well. Clearly, we are going to negotiate a contract that allows us to make investment. We have to remember the history of this country. It's not that we forgot what we had in the past. We are prudent. I think that what happened until now is encouraging us to go ahead with our Venezuelan partner, with PDVSA, and the minister. Just to talk about SERM, I like that maybe Francesco say something about SERM, and then if there is anything to add for Venezuela or in general for downstream, also Pino can add something, and Stefano Ballista, if there is something for the biofuel refineries.

Yes. About our benchmark refining margin, clearly this benchmark is a nominal value that is representing a status that is a normalized status of the market. It takes account of the crudes that are generally imported in our refineries, take into account of the freight costs that are normally assumed for this transportation and for these logistic events. The situation that we faced since March are completely out of norm. The SERM that you can read on a just generic way is not the actual margin that we are able to capture because there are some factors of discount, mainly higher freight cost, higher logistic cost, differential of crudes that are not matching the original crudes that were included in the formula, different yields.

Also there is some hedging factors that weighted because we covered a small portion of the throughput during the quarters because we take advantage of the scenario. Clearly, the spike that occurred in the last month is so material that has limited this opportunity. In general, you have to consider that what you read as an average on a nominal SERM to be converted in our actual figure will be with a discount of $2, $3 per barrel.

Okay, it's very clear. The fundamental is, in any case, that we have completed all the turnaround in the first and some Q in the second quarter. We are very able to maintain the maximum capacity in the third Q, and that it means with this current margin a lot of result.

Guido. If I may, I'd like to complement with some operational information.

On the gas business Venezuela, of course. On the gas business, as you know, in March, we have signed a sustainability agreement on Cardon IV. PDVSA is honoring this agreement, so it's providing cargo to pay the current gas invoices.

On the other hand, we are preparing a plan of development for Perla to export gas. The filing of this POD is imminent. On the oil business, as Claudio said, we are at the very final stage of the negotiation. We have also prepared ourself, and we are ready to mobilize, as soon as we sign this contract, rigs to exploit the resources there and make use of the spare capacity that the facilities in Venezuela have to increase production, of course.

Thank you. Thanks, Biraj. We are now going to move to Josh Stone at UBS.

Josh. Yeah, thanks, Jon, good afternoon.

Two questions, please. Firstly on CapEx. Thanks for the project list on slide six. It is useful. If I understand correctly, you want to develop these new projects without increasing spending. It brings up the question of which projects are falling off the list. I noticed this in your release, there was some impairment related to a slowdown in more marginal fields. Maybe anything around the sort of which fields are more marginal, which geographies are more marginal to make room for these new projects would be useful. Thanks. The second question on chemicals. The losses clearly narrowed this quarter, but you are still losing money. Maybe just talk about the trend of earnings, what you are seeing for margins in chemicals, and how much of the improvement could be attributed to self-help versus the wider macro. Thank you. For CapEx, it's true, we are growing.

Also we demonstrate in the last couple of years that we are growing without increasing CapEx. That means that it comes from at least two factors. One, that we are very effective and efficient in developing fields. I think in the last 10 projects that we developed, I talk about large projects, we respect not just the timing but also the budget. We never exceed our budget. That is a very critical point in the upstream, especially when you develop deep offshore or floating LNG or other stuff that you're able to respect time and budget. Secondly, as you know, we create a different kind of economic model. A satellite model, through which we deconsolidate and through the growth component and the value component, they have production.

They can justify their investments without really creating additional burden on our balance sheet. It allows us to go faster and keep a very clean or light balance sheet that allow us to expand or increase our remuneration policy, for example. That is, as you know, is our priority, and that's what we demonstrate in the last couple of years. It's not a question to delete or write off as you sell marginal field. We never write off marginal field. We farm out through an M&A process that was very successful, through which we got some good income. I think that the two principal reason is what I told you. I don't know if you want to, either to add something. Otherwise, I pass the ball to Adriano to talk about chemicals and chemicals trend and how we're going to do- Sure in the future.

Josh, thanks for the question. As you well describe in the question, the result in thermochemical is improving quarter-over-quarter. In the second quarter compared to the same quarter of last year, we have seen a major improvement in the range of three digit, above three digit. We need to make a distinction between what is transformation and what is a scenario that also as you ask. In terms of transformation, we are performing in line with what we say to the market, that we expect that on a yearly basis, we have in the ballpark of EUR 250 million. If you see right now the trajectory of result of the transformation, we are a little above 10% above this target of EUR 250. Right now, we estimate more in the range of EUR 280 million-EUR 300 million. Part is also scenario. We have seen an improvement in the scenario in the second half.

You need to consider the net impact of the scenario because you know that we are energy intensive or feedstock intensive. Of course, whatever you have seen in term of increase of feedstock energy, of course, is higher cost for us. We have seen also a shortage in the market, not an increase of demand. This is something that we should ground as a scenario. There is no increase of demand, but there's a shortage of product because for six, eight weeks, due to the Hormuz closure, we have not seen import from Middle East. After eight weeks, we have seen an increase of import of U.S. Whatever probably was not coming from Middle East has been replaced. We are now back to the starting point.

For sure, in the second quarter, we have seen improvement of the scenario. To the last part of your question, how much is this trajectory? Going forward is based on what we declare to the market. We expect to continue to improve performance due to transformation of the improvement on a yearly basis for coming years is a 50% transformation, 50% is new platforms, more or less.

Good. Thank you. Great. Thanks, Adriano.

Thanks, Josh. We're now going to move to Alessandro Pozzi at Mediobanca. Alessandro? Yep. Thank you for the questions.

The first one, for Claudio, going back to production. Of course, you have a lot of production coming to 2030. If you add all the other opportunities that you have in Cyprus, additional upside Indonesia, Argentina, and Venezuela, it looks like the potential for underlying growth is very large, even beyond 2030. Of course, there's always a need for disposal. Putting disposals aside, what could be the potential underlying growth of the portfolio that you have today looking into, let's say, middle of next decade? The second one, a follow on on disposals. Can you give us an update on the disposal that you expect in the upstream, maybe Indonesia as well? There's a bit more to be sold there. Also on the scope of the agreement with Ares in the upstream. Thank you. Thank you for your question.

Clearly, next year we are going to have an update. What we said now, and I just said, is that there's potential up to 2030 is 4% growth. After 2030, maybe it can be better than that. For sure, I don't think that there is another company that has more than 54 projects for start up radio organic with very low cost. We're going to see. Clearly, we have to understand what is the situation. It's very difficult to talk about the end of the year with this kind of volatility, with all is happening. It's hard to talk about 2027 also, if we are really solid and we don't scare anything. Clearly, if we are to talk in five, six, seven years, what is going to happen?

I think that we are in a situation where the world needs more energy. That is clear. There is an energy race among the big champions, the big countries, for different reasons. Demography, clear, but also we talk about hyperscale data center, AI, and the growth rate as the industry and a lot of countries are demonstrating. We need energy. Now we understood that we need oil and gas. That is clear. We are really well placed to give an answer to this call, this big call about oil and gas. We've never been so strong. Inside the industry, in term of number of projects and geographies, because when I talk about 54 new projects, we are talk about at least 13 or 14 different countries. Diversification as a keyword. Diversification. That means that we don't have all the eggs in the same basket.

Each country is very rich in term of future growth. I can tell you, we are in a good position. We are in a good position in a world that needs They need energy. They are hungry for energy, starving for energy. Eni is really in a very strong position, never been so strong. Disposal. I think that I give the floor to Francesco to talk about the status of our disposal.

Clearly, the plan for this year is almost completed. As you mentioned, we are in advanced stage for the last step. That is the Indonesia 10% that has already entered the last stage. We have completed a number of deals and that are pending the closing. We have done the Nigeria onshore disposal. We are running the increase of capital planning tool with the consequence in term of balance sheet. We announced this deal related to infrastructure. There are various activities. For the coming years, we will continue to maximize the valorization of our portfolio. Our portfolio is a living animal, is added opportunity through exploration, through business development, business combination. This means that there's opportunity to valorize part of that, to reduce exposure to areas or regions that are no more core, or eventually also to improve the valorization of transformation business.

I think that we proved that I remember the analysts were considering last year as the top of our disposal plan. I think that also we proved that this year we have new ideas to put on the table. I think this will continue in the coming years, but will be part of the next four-year plan.

What is the perimeter of the infrastructure deal?

The infrastructure deal is a partnership that is working on a generic, is not a specific set of assets. Infrastructure, you know that the upstream business has many kind of infrastructures. The idea is not to build or to identify a geography, a field or something that is well defined, but is a generic description of a broader portfolio and creating a financial synthetic element that simulate the cash flow related to that infrastructure. This is the way that we, let's say, created that has a potential to extract more value from infrastructure that has a fixed return, while we would like to invest in high double-digit return on our upstream assets.

All right. Thank you very much.

Thanks, Alessandro. We're going to move to Ahmed Ben Salem at Oddo. Are you there? Yeah. Hi.

Thank you for taking my question. Hello. You mentioned the possible extraordinary dividend review in Q3. What would trigger that decision? If cash flow remains strong, would buyback still be your preferred way of returning excess cash to shareholders? Thank you. We have set the rules for the excess dividend.

The rules are, if we are assuming in a full year, the EUR 90 Brent scenario. Currently, we are at 91. We are in the money for the excess dividend distribution. If we assume the 50% increase of refining margin, EUR 9 is the trigger, we are well above that number. We assume it is a 50% on the EUR 36 megawatt hour. That was the budget for TTF, it is 54 means the 50% increase. We will be above the 54 on average, currently we are probably in the range of 47, 48. There will be an extra dividend. If we want to say simulate with the current level of year-to-date price, there is an extra dividend.

We will see in September how the market will evolve, which are expectations for the end of the year, and clearly how the company has performed in terms of cash generation.

Yes. What we said, just to specify that in October- Yes we had to take the decision.

Yes. We're going to pay the extra dividend in the fourth quarter, so by December.

Yes. Just to remember what is going to happen.

Yes. Just another element. If we are clearly in that situation where there is an extra dividend, you have to consider there is probably also an extra buyback, because if we enter in a higher price, there will be a ceiling up to EUR 4 billion, but we are currently at EUR 3.4. We saturate the 60% cash flow from operation distribution up to the limit. Yes. Great. Thanks, Francesco. Thanks, Ahmed.

We're going to move to Michele Della Vigna at Goldman Sachs. Michele? Thank you. Again, congratulations on the strong results.

Two questions. First, I wondered if you had any comment on the situation in Kazakhstan around the enforcement of this EUR 5 billion environmental fine on Kashagan. Secondly, could you shed a bit more light on this Mercuria Eni Global Trading joint venture, what you expect it could contribute in the coming years, and whether effectively GGP becomes part of the joint venture? Thank you. Okay. I think for both Kazakhstan and Mercuria, Guido will go on to answer, and maybe I can add something, but I'm sure that Guido has covered completely the two questions.

Okay. Let's start on arbitration, on this ongoing arbitration. Of course, first of all, let me clarify that the operator and all the shareholders in support. The operations have been conducted in compliance with the law of Kazakhstan. NCOC had all the permits required to do so. That's an important element that we always have to underline. However, the Republic of Kazakhstan, through various instrumentalities and agencies, had continued to pursue this sulfur fine, and has also commenced some enforcement steps. Despite, we have to say, there is, under the commercial arbitration, under the PSA, which is ongoing, there was a restraining order from an international tribunal prohibiting the Republic to take any measure to enforce the fine during the arbitration, of course. Of course, the operator is continuing to challenge this sulfur fine.

Including, of course, an investment treaty arbitration, which is currently ongoing also. The situation is of course ongoing. At the moment, they made some steps. At the moment, they are on hold on any other kind of enforcement. This is the current situation on Kazakhstan. As far as the trading, clearly, this is part of our transformation of the trading business. The trading business initially was more a kind of a business service provider in our corporation. We became more a marketplace player, again, within the company. The third and last step was to merge with a pure trader to combine the best of the two worlds.

To combine the variety, the diversified set of industrial assets, the structured supply portfolio of a corporate like Eni, very well diversified, as Claudio said, both in terms of business and geographies with the operational flexibility, the systems of a pure player. Of course, it is a 50/50 JV. We expect in the long term that this JV and the trading activity will help to raise and lift our ROACE by one or two percentage points.

Cash flow per barrel. Yeah.

Of course, the cash flow per barrel and the overall result of the company.

Thank you. Very good. Thanks, Michele.

We're going to now move to Fergus Neve at Rothschild & Co Redburn. Fergus? Brilliant. Thank you very much for taking my questions.

Two questions, please. First on Enilive, where the results were particularly strong this quarter, and it was great to see that feed through to the guidance upgrade. Could you just give us some color on the relative split of the results between the marketing business and the biofuels business this quarter? Perhaps also comment on how your biofuel margins have been looking so far in 3Q. Secondly, just following up from the earlier refining question. The assumption in the scenario for the SERM has stepped up quite a bit for the second half, for the overall number in the full year.

I just wondered if you could give us some color on where the new adjusted SERM is sat, or has been tracking so far in July, and perhaps some thoughts on how much of an uplift that might give to the business moving forward, in the second half. Thanks. Okay. The first question for Stefan and the second one for Pino.

Stefan and Pino as well.

Yes. Thank you for the question. The quarter has been very strong, and result has been driven by a step up of the biorefinery performance. In terms of overall result, out of the EUR 375 million EBITDA adjusted, as rough number is around 35%-40% contribution from the biorefinery. This has been driven, yes, by the scenario improvement, significant scenario improvement, also actually by a very strong performance from the asset. If you look to the available asset, Chalmette and Gela in this quarter, overall utilization rate has been above 90%. On top, we put in place several optimization levers in order to extract all the value available. Moving forward, situation, it's going to proceed in that direction. Rationale is given by the fact that this market scenario is underpinned by an increased demand.

Demand for 2026 is foreseen around 20 million ton versus the 16 million of 2025. This is due by the rollout of new regulation in Europe. With the Renewable Energy Directive we got just a few days ago, Spain again confirming target, moving from energy content to GHG reduction and banning double counting. On top in the U.S., where we got in April a confirmation on the new target from the Environmental Protection Agency. Even if we look at the market as a whole, we saw that the flows from U.S. to Europe are pretty much dropping. This is because the value of both market is quite relevant and strong, given what I said. This is another strong signal moving forward.

Pino. Okay. About the SERM, what we are seeing now in July is a very high level, above EUR 30 per barrel.

That should remain very bullish in the next months because the combination of many factors. First of all, the storage is very low for all the product. There is a low refining capacity in operation. We are in the driving season. The crack spread that we are seeing in gasoil but also in gasoline are very high and there is also some premium to import product. What we expect in the next months is a very bullish period, and we are gaining of this because we are anticipating the shutdown of Sannazzaro and Milazzo refinery. They are the two main capacity and conversion refinery that we have.

The third refinery, Taranto, as planned the shutdown for maintenance in September, we are moving this shutdown for a couple of months in order to gain all the period.

Very good. Thanks, Pino. We're now going to move to Paul Redman at BNP Paribas. Paul. Hi, everyone, and thank you very much for your time.

I had one question on strategy, and that was just around the 320 service stations you recently acquired in Europe. I just want to understand the strategic rationale for buying fuel stations today, but also what the impact could be on earnings from the deal. Secondly, you guide to underlying improvement in your cash flow from operations of EUR 700 million this year. I wanted to ask what are the key drivers of that underlying improvement. Thank you. About the acquisition in Central Europe, mainly Germany and Denmark, this is part of a strategy of expanding our Enilive marketing activity.

Enilive has already exposure to marketing in the country, in Germany. That is the second country as a number of station. We thought this is a good opportunity to buy a second tire brand that could be improved, enhanced in terms of valorization, thanks to our clearly branding, possibility to add shopping and convenience stores, and benefiting also of local logistic support from our Germany refinery participation. We have two participation in two plants in Germany. The contribution, this is an asset that has generated the range of EUR 40 million-EUR 50 million for EBITDA. In terms of cash flow from operations improvement, cash flow from operations improvement is related to all the improvement that we mentioned during this conference.

Production growth, upstream production growth, cash flow per barrel related to that growth, opportunity and growth generated by GGP and Enilive benefit improvement that we mentioned through scenario and plant availability. All these elements are the major contributor of the cash flow revised guidance.

Thank you very much. Thanks, Paul.

We're going to now move to Naisheng at Barclays. Naisheng? Thanks, John. Good afternoon, all.

Two questions, please. The first one is on downstream. Both Enilive and Plenitude continue to improve profitability, outlook has improved too, especially on Enilive. I wonder, does this change your view or your partner's strategic view over those business? My second question is on upstream. You have a very busy upstream growth pipeline, 54 organic growth projects, as you mentioned. Could you talk about what Eni has done right to progress them in time and under budget? Are you worried about future CapEx cost inflation, please? Thank you. On the view about the Enilive and Plenitude, I think that this business confirm the model, the way we created this business that are putting together renewable content and transition content, plus retailer, therefore marketing outcome.

This reinforce the possibility to navigate through the cycles. You saw in this business a different cycle up and down because sometimes there are improvements, then there is a slowdown, et cetera. Through the combination of these two elements, we are able to manage, in any case, this kind of trend. We have a stronger balance sheet in each of them, we have the possibility to use the generation of cash on one side of the retailer in order to supply the growth of the renewable side.

Therefore, I think this is a confirmation that what we set up in the last four or five years related to these two businesses and the partnership that recognize the value of that is effective and working. This also help us to have a faster view towards a potential IPO that is a final goal for each of them.

On our pipeline of project, a couple of things. First of all, we proved in the past, as Claudio said, that we've been able to manage a project within cost and within budget. We've been able also to run multiple project. Just to remind, last year, we've started up five major projects. We demonstrated that we are able to handle quite a large number of projects. Our fast-track model, which is designed for that, is designed to run parallel activity, is designed also to have a quite a high degree of on-hand features. We have an engineering company into the corporation, which is helpful in this kind of projects. As far as concerned inflation, you are right. The inflation was already in the region of 3%-4%, 2026 to 2025.

After the Middle East conflicts, the range is becoming more 4%-6% because of the, of course, cost of the fuel and the dislocation of the market. To ensure cost discipline and schedule reliability across the project on top of this designed fast-track model, we have also an integrated procurement strategy, which allowed us to expand the supply chain into new frontier market, strengthen strategic partnership through master framework agreement, also applying some refined tendering approach. Consider that most of the contract for the project we are talking about are already locked in before the crisis of the Middle East.

Thank you very much. Very helpful.

Thank you. I want to add something about what Willow said because we are in this situation today because strategically we built the company in that way.

When 15 years ago, everybody were outsourcing, we insourced. It was against the mainstream, against the trendy situation of 20, 15 years ago. People prefer to reduce risk going through M&A, but we decided to insource. We decided, as we said, to create an engineering company. We decided to be specialized in the exploration. Then we decided to be specialized in the development, becoming the main contractors and moving the different package. When you talk about cost, to be able to contain cost, you must have the skills to control your activities in each single step. If you are not able to control your activity, you can use the best model you want, you are not able to control your cost. If you build your project, you are able. If you build your company with this purpose, you are able to do that.

Not only we demonstrated, but was our strategy. When we present this kind of strategy more than 15, 16 years ago, people was surprised because we were not following the trend in exploration, in everything. Now, I think that we are in the best position to not just find new exploration resources, but be able to develop, be able to control our costs, be able to give the right guidance to our contractors. Thank you. Very helpful. Thanks, Claudio.

Thanks, Naisheng. I'm conscious I said we'd close at the top of the hour, I'm going to take my contingency and go to 3:10 P.M. We may not get around to everybody's asking questions, I apologize for that, and you can follow up later. We're now going to move to Henry Tarr at Berenberg. Henry? Hi there, thanks for taking my questions.

I have two. One is, you have several projects obviously underway currently in the U.A.E. and in Qatar. Is there any indication of the impact so far of the Hormuz disruption on these projects? I guess following on from the cost question. Secondly, the sites in transformation, I guess costs have been running at sort of EUR 50 million a quarter through the first half. Is that a sensible indication for the second half? Thank you. On the first one, the answer is very short.

There's no impact on the project. Most of the activity and the manpower and material were already in country, it's progressing. This is both in Qatar and of course, in U.A.E.

Yes, about the sites in transformation, this is already a flat trend, a steady quarterly trend that we expect them to decline in the next years because clearly you reduce the amount of activity that have to be transformed.

Thanks, Henry. I am going to move now to Al Simon at Citigroup. Al? Thanks, Jon. Can I just return to the question on Venezuela?

Can you give us some clue about what you are looking in terms of the ways of protecting your investment? Clearly, there is big potential, but there is also quite a big investment. Is it a service agreement or a PSC? What sort of fiscal structure is it? I have a second question, which actually is on Fusion. I saw this quarter you signed this Fusion Fuels agreement in the U.K. Obviously, you have got CFS starting up in Boston next year. Can you talk about what you think the next couple of years in Fusion looks like? Should we be getting very excited about it? Thank you. For Venezuela, I think that we already said before that that is a different kind of contract.

It is more likely a PSC or something like that. I talk about Junin 5, because Junin 5 is the main topic. Perla, no problem, we can export. Corocoro is good. It is good, can give a contribution, but it is small. The big contributor, we talk about really a big contribution because it is almost five or six billion gross recoverable resources, is coming from this field. This field is mainly a drilling, because it is a shallow reservoir, 1,000 feet. You can imagine what we do or what people do in the Lower 48 in Permian. Very fast drilling, and then you recover. You invest, you recover. You invest, you recover.

It is not really a standard upstream project where you have to invest for four or five years or three years, what you want, and then you start recovering. You have a lot of inactive capital and big exposure. In this case, it is more operating spending. The structure of the business is really give you a protection because it is a very fast recover. Clearly, you have to invest, yes. You have to continue investing. The depletion rate is not the same, or the Permian is much better. The drainage area is quite good, also it is very heavy. That continue to produce also for some time without a big depletion. We have the contract from one side There's not imprisoned Mista.

Clearly, we are not going to invest with the oil contract. From the other side, the kind of E&P project that protect you from exposure in New York. I know you want to say something. No? No. Talking about fusion, Lorenzo, that is our Director, head of all the Technology service, the R&D, and is in charge of fusion.

Maybe he can spend some word.

Thank you, Claudio. Just to provide you an update for CFS, the activity is going very well. We are at final stage of construction. We are physically assembling the machine. We are more than 75% of advancement, we are very confident by next year, beginning of 2028, machine will be ready, and then we will start up the commissioning to reach the positive Q > 1. Concerning the activity in U.K., we have signed an agreement with the UKAEA, which is the nuclear agency. We are building a machine, a plant to treat the tritium. We are in the range of the 30% of advancement. Recently, like you correctly said, we create a private company called RH3OVA, with the aim to commercialize these technologies, and to become also an opportunity for industrial purpose. Activities are going very well in this direction.

Thanks, Lorenzo. Thanks, Al. Thank you.

We're going to now move, and I think this will have to be the last question to I apologize to those still waiting. Maybe we can talk to you later. This will be to Matt Lofting at J.P. Morgan. Matt. Thanks, Jon. Congratulations to you all on a very strong update this morning.

I wanted to just ask you about Latin America as a portfolio hub. When you look at the continent as a whole, it looks like it's becoming increasingly important to the diversification strategy and growth profile that you've talked about over the last hour or so. Can you just expand there in terms of the extent to which that's becoming more significant to Eni as you look forward to 2030+, and how you think about best structuring investments in that part of the world in order to optimize investment paybacks? Thank you. Yeah. As we already said also in the capital market update back in March, if you look at the production distribution at 2030, South America will play a significant role in our share of production.

Mainly from, of course, Argentina, Venezuela, Mexico. In Mexico, we are running at 95,000 barrel of oil equivalent per day, and we are the largest international producer. The asset in Venezuela, we have described already. Claudio gave some interesting features on Argentina. We are talking of a world-class basin, 25 TCF, 500 million of condensate, which makes 4.8 billion barrel of oil to be recovered. We have an estimated production at peak at around 550,000 barrel of oil equivalent, of which 200,000 liquids and the remaining is LNG for export. This is, I would say, the inventory of the reserves already discovered and to be developed.

We are also expanding our exploration portfolio. We have acquired blocks in Uruguay, which is a very, I would say, promising basin, and soon we will update you also on our plans in Uruguay. As far as the financial structure on Venezuela, Claudio already said, which will be our setup. In Argentina, we are in partnership with YPF, the national oil company, and XRG, and this will be an incorporated venture, which will manage all the value chain from the upstream to the midstream up to the export. The export is on an equity-like basis from at least the two international shareholders.

Thank you. I want just to add something in perspective. We talk about energy race. We have to increase production and find energy. The situation is quite different respect to what happened 10 years ago, 5 years ago only, or maybe 10 years ago. We have Russia. We have all the Gulf. Now, what was certain a few years ago now is no more certain. We lost some country where we can go there and buy energy. Russia. Okay? They produce. They still produce, but we are not now this or to Qatar or to other. In the future, we are going to have again? I hope so. In any case, we need more energy. The race to energy now is different because there is no country where you can go there and buy energy. You have to go there and explore.

You have to go there and develop. You have to go there and put in production. Then you can have your energy. Not just diversification. If you say that we need just diversification, you are superficial. You must have the skill to go there and find your resources and stay on the value chain. That is very, is different paradigm. The world is changing. It's no more a question of buying stuff and sell stuff. We are not in the commercial or just trading. You must be in the industrial situation where you are able to explore, develop, and produce. Is something going back to the basics? Maybe yes, that is the situation of today. Diversification is not enough. You must do the work from the beginning to the end if you want to win this energy race. Thank you very much. Thank you, Matt, for that question.

I'm going to wrap the Q&A up right now. Again, apologies to those who weren't able to ask a question. Do please follow up with the investor relations team. I'm going to say good luck for the rest of the reporting season, please do enjoy a nice holiday period, and we look forward to seeing you in September.