Conference Operator: Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen and welcome to Eni's 2026 first quarter results conference call hosted by Mr. Francesco Gattei, Chief Transition and Financial Officer. For 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 N1 on your telephone. I'm now handing you over to your host to begin today's conference. Thank you.
Francesco Gattei: Good afternoon. Amid the volatility and disruption to the energy system over the past two months, ATENI will continue to focus on the delivery of financial performance and key strategic milestones. As we set out at our capital market update just over a month ago, we are working to deliver reliable, affordable, and lower carbon energy for all our customers. Our industrial strategy, anchored to technology skills and long-term investment into top-tier assets across a diversified portfolio, has, if anything, been further validated in the context of the event of this year. Our investment framework, underpinned by strong cash flow and a robust balance sheet, supports us in delivering sector-leading growth. As a result, we can also reward our investors through a combination of attractive distribution and the continued rise of the capital value of the business, something that has been reflected by the share price improvement. It's also worth keeping in mind that while energy markets have been highly volatile since March, Q1 averages, although higher than the planning assumptions set out at our capital market update, were well within an historical normal range for our volatile industry. Actually, in Euro terms, it was a bit softer than last year. 2026 has seen very positive advancement in strategic terms, and Q1 supports this progress with strong financials. I will analyze the financial in more detail shortly, but we reported 3.5 billion euro of pro forma EBIT, cash flow from operation of 2.9 billion euro and pro forma gearing at 15%, well within our expected 10-15 range. Our pro forma gearing, assuming the full effect of planning to deconsolidation, is even lower, at 12%. Major strategic events of the year to date include probably the ever-best start to a year for exploration, with an exceptional level of new resources discovered in seven different counties. The FID of Gangnorth and Gahem in Indonesia, the dual exploration strategy of a stake in our Belain discovery, strong production growth helped by start-up production at NGC in Angola, and first LNG export from the second Congo LNG. and in the transition sector the agreement to reorganize and deconsolidate Plenitude and advancing two new biorefineries at San Nazaro and Priolo. But before we get into the details of the financial, I will spend a bit more time on what was the most remarkable start of the year for exploration. As you know, we have established a track record as the leading exploration company in the sector, discovering an average of 900 million barrels per year over the past 10 years. And while our impact activity is somewhat front-loaded, In the first four months of 2026, we had already added around 1 billion of new resources. Critically, these new resources also all have a credible and visible pathway to development and production, consistent with our focus on efficient time to market, where we are also an industry leader. Our production growth to 2030 is visible and sector-leading, and we are building material optionality for the 30s. In Angola, our Azul affiliate, as operator, announced the significant oil discovery of Algaita on Block 1506. Preliminary estimates put oil in place at around 500 million barrels, and the presence of an FPSO, merely 18 km away, promises a speedy and efficient development. In Côte d'Ivoire, the Morin South 1 well significantly extended the proven area of Calao gas condensate discovery, confirming a world-class discovery of up to 5 TCF and 450 million barrels in place. In Libya, in March, we announced two offshore gas discoveries, estimated to total more than one TCF in place, and closed by the existing Barasalan facilities, enabling rapid tie-back. In early April, we announced the Denise discovery in the Temsa concession offshore Egypt. Our preliminary estimate for Denise is 2 TCF of gas and 130 million barrels of condensate in place, and situated less than 10 kilometers from existing production infrastructure. Last, but certainly not least, this week we announced the giant Geliga gas condensate discovery in the Kutai Basin offshore Indonesia. Our preliminary resource estimate is in place gas of 5 TCF and 300 million barrels of condensate, effectively a second gang. Because Geliga is close to the undeveloped 2 TCF Gula discovery, that includes also an additional 70 million barrels of condensate, and thus development synergy persists. plus the same infrastructure and time-to-market advantage of GANG, there is a clear case for a fast-track development of a third major production hub and the significant production and value uplift this implies. QR results were consistent with the scenario condition we face and the positive momentum we are generating in growing the company. But not all the upside of the scenario was captured in this quarter, as our downstream and biorefineries were under the traditional maintenance that we executed before the start of the driving season. EMP delivered 9% year-on-year production growth and consistent capture of venture prices. Year-over-year growth contributions from Norway and Congo were especially notable, and the outcome is after disruption to Middle East volumes in March. GGP pro forma EBIT of €0.3 billion is reflecting the more volatile scenario, and it is consistent with our updated guidance of €1.3 billion in pro forma EBIT. In our transition businesses, pro forma EBITDA of €0.52 billion is consistent with our full year guidance of €2.4 billion. Plenitude that will continue to grow both on clients and new capacity. will increase its gross EBITDA by 20% to €1.3 billion, while Enilive will continue to see a supportive biorefining margin and will reach an EBITDA of €1.1 billion, 16% over last year. Our refinery utilization was low, reflecting a major turnaround program which should position us well for the remainder of the year. Meanwhile, our results in Versailles highlight some evident progress, in the reported results of curtailing its losses in line with our plan. Contribution from associate reflected the macro scenario condition, with VAR reporting a strong production growth. A higher scenario along the year will enhance the results of our satellites and could improve their distribution and our cash flow too. The tax rate of 42% was in line with our full year guidance. Cash flow from operation generated was in line with our expectation with good contribution from associate dividend and a cash tax rate of around 25%. Working capital had a large negative impact on cash flow consistent with the sharp rise in prices in March, but is not out of the ordinary in that context. We do expect to reverse this in the coming quarters. Capes was €1.9 billion, in line with a full-year amount of €7 billion for the year. Net capes was broadly equal to gross, with limited portfolio activity in this quarter, beyond announcing but not completing the sale of a 10% stake in Balene in Ivory Coast to Socar. After the quarter ended, we completed on the previously announced acquisition by Plenitude of Acea Energy for around €500 million. We paid the third quarterly dividend referring to 2025 in March and repurchased €280 million in shares. Shares in issues have reduced by 17% since the end of 2021. Proforma gearing of 15% incorporates M&A transactions announced but not yet concluded and represents a broadly balanced quarter for cash-in and cash-out. We expect the consolidation of plenitude to close in the third quarter with a benefit to consolidate net debt over the following quarter as plenitude funding is restricted. If we incorporate also this effect, our pro forma gearing is actually at 12%. Updating our guidance for 2026, we confirmed the outlook for EMP production with a growth rate of 3 or 4%, incorporating our current assumption for the impact of Middle East disruption. We have also updated our market scenario projection for the year in the context of the current situation, raising full-year Brent to $83 per barrel from $70, the TTF to €50 for MWh from $36, as we believe that higher price will be necessary for the refilling of empty storage, and the refining margin in Europe, our CERM, to $8 per barrel from $6. From a financial perspective, reflecting the change scenario and the line-out performance, we now estimate cash flow from operation pre-working capital of €13.8 billion, up 20% from €11.5 billion set in March. Applying our proposed updated distribution policy, this implies a share buyback raised by around 90% to €2.8 billion. As previously communicated, this is the floor for 2026 that will be maintained even in the case of future scenario deterioration. Actually, taking into account the current market price are well above that level, we should expect even further increase in our distribution policy in the coming quarters. Our new policy will be put to shareholder for approval at the AGM on 6th May. And this concludes my remarks and along with my colleagues from any top management on the call, I am ready to take your questions.
Conference Operator: This is the conference operator. Please press star 1 for questions and star 2 to remove yourself from the question queue. I now leave the floor to Mr. John Rigby for the Q&A session.
John Rigby: Thanks, operator. We'll start the Q&A with the normal request for one or two questions only, please, so that we can get through the entire list. And we're going to start with Biraj at RBC. Biraj, if you'd like to ask your question.
Biraj (RBC Analyst): How should we think about that £55 million this quarter and, you know, what we should assume for the full year, 26 and into 27. And then second question is just on Indonesia. And congratulations again on the exploration success. Now that we're closer to the deal closing in Q2, are you able to say what the cash adjustment is set to be, Nettie and I? Thank you.
John Rigby: Biraj, could you just re-go over your first question because we missed the start of it? Thanks.
Biraj (RBC Analyst): Oh, sorry. It's the transformation costs. The 55 million you've broken out, what should we expect for the full year?
Francesco Gattei: Okay, I will leave the question about the transformation cost to Adriano Alfani. On Indonesia, we do expect a cash settlement, and also you know that we work in this kind of model with some distribution that are related to the capability of funding of this entity standalone, but we do not disclose this amount that will be in any case irrelevant.
Adriano Alfani: Sure. Thanks. Thanks for the question. I mean, on the 55 million, while we started a new project, we continue to drive efficiency on all the sites that are in transformation. So you should read on analyzed base roughly 50 million of efficiency that we are going to bring. So you should not multiply 55 for four, but you should discount by 50 million at least of efficiency that we are going to bring. But you need to consider that today these sites are in transformation for the future, adding value to the new project, because we are going to start new activities. So this is something that in the future will generate value. And by the way, it's incorporating our CFO for guidance.
John Rigby: Thanks, Baraj. We are now going to go... Sorry, one second. We'll now move to Alejandro Vigil at Santander. Alejandro, could you ask your questions?
Alejandro Vigil: The first one is about the situation in the Middle East in your portfolio. How are you managing the situation and potential impact in terms of your supply contracts, your oil and gas production? In general, how are you managing this context? And the second one is about Indonesia. I remember that you were talking about the plateau of the new joint venture of about half a million barrels per day. With the new discoveries, this is now a very conservative assumption, or you reiterate this half a million as a guidance for the production?
Francesco Gattei: Thank you. I leave it to Guido Brusco to answer both questions.
Guido Brusco: First, on the Middle East, The impact overall is marginal, both on oil production and, of course, on free cash flow. We have limited exposure in terms of production. Three percent of our total production comes from Middle East. As far as concerned, the products and LNG also is limited, if not zero impact on LNG. Thanks to the flexibility of our portfolio, the diversified geographical footprint, we could basically cope with the missing volumes coming from Qatar. essentially, while for the products, we, on all the commodities, gasoline, diesel, and even jet fuel, we are prepared to honor all our commitment with our customers. On Indonesia, yeah, indeed, I would say that assumption was reflecting the status of the base of resources at that time. Of course, having discovered Geliga, which is equivalent in terms of volume in place to gang, and having also another stranded asset there, Gula, which is give and take to TCF, we can basically replicate another hub in the region. So clearly this will raise the the production target in the medium to long term to more than 500, I would say 700, 750 might be a reasonable figure.
John Rigby: Thank you, Guido. We're going to move now to Josh at UBS. Josh, if you'd like to ask your question.
Josh (UBS Analyst): Yeah, thanks, John, and good afternoon. Hopefully you can hear me. Two questions. One, just on the buyback and your decision to list it, obviously I understand there's a sort of mechanical nature here given the new cash flow guidance, but more a question of the timing of why you felt now was the time to do it so soon after the capital markets day and your confidence there. And then the second question, looking at your macro deck, one thing that does stand out is the gas assumption at 50 euros per megawatt hour, which is above the curve. You're involved in the market. You have a storage business. Can you explain maybe why prices haven't moved higher so far? What do you think are the main reasons and why you set your assumption above the forward curve?
Francesco Gattei: Thank you for the question. They are partially connected, clearly. We decided to move the buyback because we believe actually that it's already evident there is a completely different trend even versus the capital market day. The capital market day occurred in the middle of March. The event at the time just started. Once we were presenting our first scenario that was based on clearly a crisis, but that could be solved in a shorter time. There were not yet bombing on the facilities that occurred at that specific time and were expanded in the following weeks. And we see there is a continuous, practically two months already inside the crisis. This crisis is not just a matter of of reaching a sort of ceasefire or a peace, but it's also to restart a lot of infrastructure and production facilities, processing facilities that were shut down or were impacted by fire and bombing. So it will take longer. So for this reason, we believe that there is quite an expected compliance by the market on the duration of this crisis that appears, I would say, much more impactful that the market is probably evaluating. On the gas specifically, We believe that in a 40-45 euro megawatt hour environment with an extended shortage of gas, particularly from Qatar, because even if Qatar will be able to restart or there will be some kind of agreement in the coming weeks, it will take time to restart all these plants or this facility, to restart the flow. You have to consider there is also bottlenecks in terms of tankers or ships and clearly LNG carrier. So the overall process of refilling European storage that completed the winter at the minimum, almost at the minimum, 25%, now we are at 30%. And to reach at least 80-90% before the start of the next winter, we require some price signals that should be increased. Price signals not only in the amount of the first front month value, but also on the structure of the curve that is not supported. So we believe that both on oil and on the gas, our price deck that we have uplifted is still conservative.
Josh (UBS Analyst): Thanks, Francesca.
John Rigby: Excuse me, sorry. We're going to now move to Alessandro Pozzi at Mediabank. Alessandro, are you there?
Alessandro Pozzi: Yep. Can you hear me? Yep. Thanks for taking the questions. The first one is on the number of discoveries that you've made so far this year. I was wondering, in your capital allocation framework, there is little room for increase in CAPEX, and we all appreciate the need to be disciplined when it comes to CAPEX budgeting. And I was wondering to this point, is CAPEX more of an input to your modeling assumption? I mean, you want to stick to that level of CAPEX despite the current scenario, or there is some headroom for maybe accelerating some of these projects, especially the ones in Indonesia. And the second question on GGP, Just wondering whether you can give us more color behind the increase in guidance and whether that is connected to your higher micro assumptions as well. Thank you.
Francesco Gattei: Okay, I will just a very short introduction, then I leave it to Guido Brusco and Christian Signoretto for the two questions. Clearly, CAPEX, we are strict to a level of CAPEX that we want to keep under certain range. You have to consider in exploration that there are explorations that are occurring inside our... business combination or affiliates, associates that are reported in equity. So once you see a discovery in Azul or in Indonesia, this will have a different treatment in terms of CAPES. Then I leave to Guido to explain also why CAPES will be relatively softer in this case.
Guido Brusco: Yeah, I think there are two angles here. One is some of the discoveries are discoveries near infrastructure, so are tie-back which are not requiring massive capital intensity. And, I mean, those are the ones that, on top of what Francesco said, that are in Angola, like Algaita, like the one in Libya or the one in Egypt, basically doors are tied in with low-cost buildings. The other angle is the others which we have made in Ivory Coast and in Geliga. The one in Indonesia, it applies again the concept that Francesco just illustrated. It is in a business combination. But on those, we can also eventually apply our dual exploration model so the net capex would be even accretive from our perspective. Now... Christian.
Christian Signoretto: Yeah. Well, on guidance of GCP, so I'd say based on the Q1 results, which were fairly strong, and the volume increase and the increase of asset-backed trading that we have seen in a more volatile scenario, we updated the guidance, taking that into consideration. And as we said before, also extending this, let's say, situation and scenario broadly along the next months, given the situation that Francesco just explained before to you.
Alessandro Pozzi: new arbitration that we need to be aware of for the rest of the year? No arbitration.
Christian Signoretto: Say it again, sorry.
Alessandro Pozzi: Is there any new arbitration that we need to be aware of for the next year?
Christian Signoretto: No, absolutely not.
Alessandro Pozzi: Thank you.
John Rigby: Thanks Alessandro. Next we're going to move to Al Saim at Citigroup.
Al Saim: Al, are you there? Yeah, thanks John. First question is just on gearing. Can you just confirm exactly how much net debt sits in Plenitude that obviously gets deconsolidated in third quarter? And then secondly, there's a question around the biofuels market. Obviously, we're seeing massive price increases through first quarter. You're putting a lot of growth capital in that business. But also this week, we've seen Europe's largest airline announced cuts to routing because of the price of jet fuel and yet you know i look and see sustainable aviation fuel staff is 40 more expensive than jet fuel so you know i i wonder how you think about the issue of affordability of biofuels um in your forecasting and investment horizon thank you
Francesco Gattei: Yes, about the plenitude, the amount of debt that we are going to deconsolidate is 2.6 billion. That clearly will be reduced once there will be the increase of capital as a consequence inside the new entity. And then I leave to Stefano Ballista to answer about the biofuel and SAF.
Stefano Ballista: Yes, as you said, the scenario significantly improved. And actually, the main reason for the scenario improvement, it's driven by market fundamentals. It's driven by the demand increase that we are seeing due to the regulation and demand days that are under deployment. And these are rules, mandates, targets that have been defined. If we look at the most recent definition of new target, I'm thinking about the US with the new renewable volume obligation, we got an increase of about 60% of demand for the next couple of years. So this is the main reason. The geopolitical situation is going to give a little bit of extra headroom, but marginally compared to the fundamentals. This means actually that the perspective on biofuel is and remains definitely strong. When you look at biofuel, you need to look both at renewable diesel on one side and sustainable aviation fuel. The market is coupled. Sustainable aviation fuel is going to be the only answer to decarbonize the aviation transport. There is no other answer at the moment. And even with a small target in terms of blending, now in euro we are about 2%, you can create significant demand but pretty much affecting marginally the overall cost position. So we got significant space for improvement, not only on renewable diesel as it's happening, but also on sustainable aviation fuel with marginal impact on one side of the component of the aviation business as a whole. So this is the view on the biofuel. And as I said, there is no other answer actually to decarbonize the aviation sector for a long while.
Al Saim: It's definitely so. I mean, Europe's largest airline has basically said they can't afford jet fuel at this price. And I accept the mandate's only 2%, but it's meant to go up. So how on earth are they going to be able to afford a high percentage of biofuel, of SAF, if it's 40% more expensive than the price of jet fuel they said they can't afford?
Francesco Gattei: Yes. It seems to be a conundrum, right? Okay. We can comment about what was the statement. But from our point of view, clearly, the biofuel now has a solution to have a resource fuel in a situation of scarcity. The premium eventually could reflect the impact of this scarcity. And you have to consider the supply chain or the chain of production of SAF is relatively young and small. Once you will have a potential larger market, you have also improved synergies. So the cost position is not just a matter of, let's say, industrial process. It's also a matter of having this process aligned in terms of size and materiality with the main potential. We do expect that after this crisis... there will be, as a reply, not only an environmental solution, but also a reply towards a potential diversification risk to deploy a larger use of this kind of alternative solution for ships, for airplanes, and for cars too.
John Rigby: Thanks, Francesco. Thanks, Al. We're now going to move to Michele Della Vigna at Goldman Sachs. Michele.
Michele Della Vigna: Thank you very much. I wanted to follow up on your exceptional exploration success. And I believe you've also completed the first Deepwater Well in Libya and was wondering what were the early results there. And second, I wanted to come back to aviation, but from a different side. I think we keep reading that we may be short of kerosene this summer. How do you see the situation and how low do you think inventories days can go before flights are actually starting to be grounded? And how much do you think that in your refiners you can actually tilt towards more just fuel production? Thank you.
Francesco Gattei: I leave to Guido to answer both questions.
Guido Brusco: So the one in Libya, it resulted in a non-commercial discovery. But it was very important either for us to have a better understanding of the basin, which is quite large, huge, diverse in term of number of prospects. And so you have to think that this is a block where... The last well drilled was drilled by S in the early 2000s, so we are talking of a large basin with quite a number of untapped resources. So it's the first well, but we'll have for sure more understanding of the basin. As far as concerned, the jet fuel, as I said before, We are prepared to satisfy and honor our commitment with our customer. Of course, the situation is very different and diverse if you look at the different flight operator and supplier. But as far as concern E&I, we are prepared to satisfy our customers.
John Rigby: Thanks, Michele. We're going to now move to Paul Redman at BNP. Paul, are you there?
Paul Redman: Yeah, thank you very much. First question is just come back to E&I Live. Could you give us some insight into kind of what you've seen in terms of margins, February, March, and what you're seeing in April for the biofuel business? And if they're a lot stronger, I was surprised the EBITDA guidance didn't get upgraded. Is this because biofuels is positive, but the commercial business maybe having a few more issues. And then secondly, just on working capital, I think you mentioned in your prepared remarks that you expect this to come down. Could you just talk us through how you expect that to play out? Thank you.
Francesco Gattei: I'll let Stefano to answer on any live and then I will reply on the working capital.
Stefano Ballista: Yes, first of all on the scenario. Actually, the scenario on biofuel improved significantly along the first quarter, even before the starting of the conflict. This was true in Europe, and it's, as I said before, linked to mandates, so it's fundamental. An example, we got recently approved in Holland the new GIG target is 28% versus a red three of 14%. And we got no more double counting. So good news, to be honest, fully expected. Same in U.S. We got the market significantly increasing again linked to fundamental. Even in the first quarter, we got an average on the RIN about $1.5 per RIN. It was less than a dollar last year. And now we are about 1.8 after the approval of the new target. So the market was already expecting the new mandates. In terms of output, it has been even better. So this got an extra drive in terms of overall margin. So this is in terms of... market setting. In terms of results, a comment. In the first quarter, we got, as any level as a whole, 220 million of EBITDA performance adjusted. This means 50 million above than the first quarter of last year. And this has been fully driven by biorefinery performance. It actually, on top of driving the upside, as you said, balanced the partial pressure on retail prices that we had experiences in Europe linked to fossil fuel prices. On top, I want to highlight that actually in the first quarter, we got Venice under maintenance and upgrading maintenance. So it has been shut down for the whole quarter. And that result has been achieved without that kind of production. Then it's going to come in place during the second quarter. And we're going to be at full potential for the second half. So being the condition of capturing results. Last comment, as I said, We were definitely expecting the improvement of the scenario, even in the business plan. So this improvement has been, for the majority, already crafted in our business plan, that one related to fundamentals. The extra upside, assuming the extra upside is going to last for the time being, is going to get an additional value that we are capturing and we're going to keep capturing.
John Rigby: Thanks, Paul. So watch this space. The next questions have come from Lydia Rainforth of Barclays.
Lydia Rainforth: Thanks, John, and good afternoon to you all. Two questions, if I could. I mean, just one.
Francesco Gattei: Now, I would like just to answer about the working capital very fast. The working capital will turn back, will improve immediately in the next quarter, and clearly along the year is subject to the evolution of the spike of the price that we, let's say, we recognized in the first quarter. Sorry, Lydia, please continue. Thanks.
Lydia Rainforth: No, no, that was important to say. Thank you very much for that. Just two questions. One, I wanted to touch on Venezuela and what you're seeing there. And then the second one, and sorry, this is more of a long-term thing, but are you seeing, in terms of the conversations you're having with host nations, with governments, has anything changed yet? Are they suddenly going, actually, we'd like to accelerate plans around exploration, we want more in terms of energy security, we want you involved more. So if there's anything, those sort of conversations, is it just too early for that at this point?
Guido Brusco: In Venezuela... Just a month ago, we signed an agreement which we called the Cardon for Sustainability Agreement, which would allow us to basically produce sustainably the gas and provide energy to the country. And this implies also a future... So this fix for the future, essentially, and implies also some activity to do some debottlenecking to the plant to increase slightly the amount of volume to the domestic and to have an export outlet for the larger resources which... which Perla carries. Basically, Perla is a reservoir of 20 TCF, so there is quite a significant potential for an export. On the oil side, we have two assets there, one in conventional water and one unconventional onshore. Two things happened. First, a new general license was issued by OFAC, which allows the operator to carry activity in Venezuela. And second, a new hydrocarbon law was enacted at the end of January this year. And this provides a framework, a legal framework, a fiscal framework to... develop in a sustainable way our oil assets. And, of course, we are engaging the authorities to make this happen.
John Rigby: And Lydia's second question was on host governments and changing... In Venezuela. Oh, more broadly, I think, as well.
Guido Brusco: Accelerate the exploration. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, I mean, broadly, there is, of course, a positive reaction from government. And we're noticing in several geographies that governments are more prone to provide the right enabler for the operator to increase exploration, provides fiscal term to produce stranded resources. Of course, there is a price element which plays a significant role, but many governments are are trying to introduce enablers to make it possible. The focus is on energy security, of course. Most of them are trying to maximize the domestic production on the government side. On the international oil company side, of course, diversification is important. is another pillar of the strategy. It has proven in the last five years that two major providers of energy, Russia and the Middle East for both oil and gas, have failed to or have proven that they could fail to deliver. And diversification in other geographies like Far East and South America or America in general and Africa is very welcomed now in the strategy. As ENI, we are very well positioned in these three geographies. We had very limited exposure to Russia. We have, as I said before, limited exposure to the Middle East. And if you look at the portfolio, in the long term, which we presented also at our last CMU, the Americas, Africa and Far East will play a larger role in our portfolio.
John Rigby: Thanks, Guido. We're now going to move to Martin Ratz at Morgan Stanley. Martin.
Martin Ratz: Thanks, John. I've got two. First of all, I'll ask you a broad question about demand destruction. It clearly is a topic with a broad range of views of whether there is and how much oil and gas demand might have been destroyed as a result of these high prices. But I was wondering if you could share a perspective. And to be clear, the nature of the question goes just beyond jet fuel, which is sort of separate topic in its own right. But What do you think is the amount of oil demand that has been destroyed as a result of these very high prices? And the second thing I wanted to ask you is about the Argentina LNG FID. I noticed there wasn't a mention anymore of it in the 1Q sort of statement, but that should still be on the schedule for later this year, no? I just wanted to confirm that.
Francesco Gattei: About demand destruction, I think that thinking about demand destruction in a matter of one month and a half is too early. So I think that demand is there. Clearly, there is potentially some small reduction that potential buyers that do not afford, but demand destruction is generally happening in a certain time frame. So For the time being, you see that there is no demand destruction. There is supply destruction, there is storage use, and there is some kind of switch, wherever it is possible to switch, eventually in certain coal, gas plants. But I haven't seen a real material destruction in terms of demand from the data that we can collect. About the Argentina LNG, I will leave it to Guido for completing the questions.
Guido Brusco: On Argentina LNG, we are still projecting an FID by the year-end. And just to give you more visibility on the activity, the engineering work is almost completed. All the major APC tender are progressing, and we are... we are estimating to complete by Q2 the majority of those and in early Q3 the remaining. And in parallel, significant progress has been made also in LNG and NGL marketing as well as on project financing. So definitely we are setting up ourselves and our partner and all the stakeholders in Argentina for an FID by the year end.
Martin Ratz: Terrific.
John Rigby: Thank you. Thanks, Martin. And to be clear, it's probably more of a function of a long list of projects that we can't fit in every quarter. Excellent. Yes. So moving on. Thanks, Martin. Moving on, we've got Matt Lofting at JP Morgan. Matt, have you got some questions?
Matt Lofting: Yes. Thanks, John. Hi, everybody. Two, please. First, it struck me looking at the revised cash flow guidance for 2026 that if we annualize Q1, the new full year targets look comfortably above that. I imagine there's probably some price lagging effects in oil and gas that impacted the numbers in Q1, particularly given prices rallied sharply in March. I wondered if you could share the price lagging impact and how that might come through. And then secondly, obviously unusual in many respects to raise distributions and buybacks so much so early in the year. Obviously it's an unusual macro situation that we're in in that context as well. But in the past you've talked about effectively a sort of a hard floor and a sort of a soft ceiling to buyback revisions. Does that still apply for 2026 against the 2.8 baseline? Thank you.
Francesco Gattei: Yes, about the cash flow from operation results, and the fact is clearly, as a consequence, you know that in the first quarter, as we mentioned, there were downs in some maintenance, so we are not able to capture certain results. Also, from the point of view of GGP, there were some benefits that we were able to... to capture partially but just in the last month of the quarter. There is a ramp-up of production in EMP that will improve for benefit along the year. And on the other side, you have to consider that there is distribution from associates that follow, in certain cases, quarterly, but in other cases, there are half-year or yearly distribution. So there are various elements that will... determine a different distribution in the next three quarters versus what we had in the first quarter. The other question was... Yeah, the unusual distribution is because we had the policy and we applied the policy. I think that I do expect that this will become potentially even more unusual in the coming quarters if the market persists.
John Rigby: Thanks, Matt. We're going to move to Massimo Bonasoli at Equita. Massimo?
Massimo Bonasoli: Thank you, John. Good afternoon. Two questions. One on the discovery in Indonesia regarding the Serah JV with Petronas. In light of the significant discovery in Indonesia, can you clarify whether the terms of the agreement already incorporated the option of the additional resource upside just discovered ahead of the closing and the second on the sensitivity table given the recent increase in volatility in physical commodity markets with widening differential across crude qualities and geographies do you believe the sensitivities you provided on benchmark prices are still fully representative or should we expect some divergence between benchmark movements and your realized profitability in the current environment. Thank you.
Francesco Gattei: On the sensitivity, then I will leave to Guido for the question about Indonesia. On the sensitivity, we gave, you remember that we're, let's say, applied, assuming a broader volatility range, so we're different than the usual sensitivity that we fixed on a shorter size fluctuation. Clearly, a sensitivity is just a theoretical number. We do not capture all the arbitrage also because the arbitrage cannot be modelled because we don't know where this potential gap and the effect on the physical barrel bottleneck that could emerge. So you keep it as a key reference, but... it's clear there will be some specific spot situation where the sensitivity is not applied, but the sensitivity is applied also on 1.7 million barrels per day of production. So that effect is already, in a certain way, diluting any specific case.
Guido Brusco: I leave that to Guido. There are adjustments on the free cash flow working capital, but there are also adjustments on the new resources discovered in the interim period and beyond the interim period. So there are mechanisms in the agreement to readjust value accordingly.
Francesco Gattei: Very clear. Thank you.
John Rigby: Thanks, Massimo. We're going to move to Fergus Nevick Rothschild. Fergus?
Fergus Nevick: Yeah, hi everyone. Thank you very much for taking my question. There's been a flurry of exploration success at the start of this year and the billion BOE of resources discovered is very impressive. I just wanted to know whether there was any colour you could give on further wells being drilled this year that we might be looking out for and if there are any others you're particularly excited about. And then secondly, it was positive to see the chemicals result improve sequentially this quarter. How should we think about this improvement in terms of the contribution from the Versalis restructuring and then also the scenario in the quarter? And looking forward to 2Q, do we expect the business to be able to capture any improved margins should they materialize? Thanks.
Francesco Gattei: I leave then to Aldo Napolitano for the exploration and Adriano Alfani back for Versalis.
Aldo Napolitano: Yes, in terms of program, exploration program for the rest of the year, Of course, we had a program this year that was really front-loaded, so many of the high-impact wells have been drilled, and so in four months we had the sequence of results that you mentioned. However, we still have some interesting wells to drill during the year, again in Indonesia, so in the Kutai Basin, so we plan to drill another well, another interesting prospect. and we will have a couple of wells in Egypt and a well in Ghana. So this will complete the wells, at least with a certain materiality. There's a large part of our exploration portfolio anyway that is interested by drilling for near-field ILX drilling, so contributing to production in very short term. but in those cases with more limited reserves.
Adriano Alfani: So on the chemical side, if we look back to the Q1, the transformation has a positive impact of roughly 100 million. Although we are facing a negative scenario because in the first quarter, clearly, there was a sort of time lag between what Francesco was talking about before, the effect on demand versus the effect negative on supply, because we had higher costs in terms of feedstock, higher costs in terms of utilities. At the end, the positive impact quarter on quarter at pro forma level is a little less than 100 because for the effect of the negative scenario, roughly 85 million. If we go in the second quarter, we are putting in place a significant action in addition to further reduce costs and to continue the transformation plan. and we expect the second quarter significantly better than the Q1, also catching some shortage that we see on the polymer market, despite still the high cost in terms of feedstock and utilities.
John Rigby: Thank you, Adriano. We're going to now move to Mark Wilson at Jefferies. Mark?
Mark Wilson: Okay, thank you. My first question is you say how you can honor commitments to customers, gasoline, jet fuel, diesel, et cetera, totally understandable. And just does that flag the idea that margins can be squeezed given feedstock prices? That's the first question. And then the second one, more general, yes, yet more exploration success, deep water, talking about additional developments as well. You commented previously, Claudio, on the service market and and how there could potentially be tightness. We're seeing service providers talk about renewed developments. So how would you see tightness in that contractor market and any particular services you feel may be under pressure given developments that we're looking at? Thank you.
Francesco Gattei: Yeah, about the... About the first question on the potential risk of margin squeeze, this is, for us, a relative risk because, essentially, we are in our chain of supply. We are able to cover most of the products that we are delivering to our customers. So, from our point of view... We are not in a situation where we have to rely too much on the cargo market. There could be some volumes related specifically on jet fuel, but this is a marginal amount. So for this reason, we do take the commitment. This is a commitment that is clearly related to our integrated value along the chain. About the contractual services in the oil market, I leave it to Guido.
Guido Brusco: Sorry, I have to restart again. So I was talking with the microphone off. So there are two elements that are driving cost at the moment. One is in the driving the short-term cost inflation, and this is mainly driven by the conflict in the Middle East, and of course across the whole oil and gas value chain, higher energy prices, logistics, insurance, commodity costs are increasing, and these are bringing almost immediate cost inflection. For one moment, let's imagine that this cost pressure will be shortly fixed, assuming that this cost pressure on the short term will disappear. There are, of course, longer-term drivers of cost pressure, a general increase in the activity in the upstream sector, And we've noticed that basically, I mean, if you look at the inflation trends from 22 to 23, 23, 24, up to 25, we already had a 15% cost increase in, I mean, starting from the 2022nd. And the pre-war... And coming here, we were in the region of the 3% to 4% of cost increase. But if you add up this short term, which I was mentioning before, the range would expand from 4% to 7%. Of course, this is the average. There are costs which are, in the long term, more under pressure, like the vessel installation for the deepwater activity. and others which are less under pressure, like the onshore drilling rig. But this is the general overview that we see in the market, and that is backed up also by sources like IHS, UCCI index.
John Rigby: Good stuff. Thanks, Guido. Thanks, Mark. We're going to move now to Chris Coupland at Bank of America. Chris.
Chris Coupland: Thank you very much. Hope you can hear me okay. Just two quick detailed questions to follow up on. I wonder whether you can talk to us about those exploration blocks that have ended up with BP. Was there a consideration whether to do this with Azul? I'm talking about Namibia, sorry. And maybe you can tell us why not with Azul. And a second, even smaller detail, I just wonder whether between your CMD and now, you've changed your expectations regarding receiving dividends from ADNOC refining. Thank you.
Francesco Gattei: I leave the answer to Aldo for the block in Namibia, and then on ADNOC I will reply later.
Aldo Napolitano: So if I understood correctly, so you're talking about the blocks that BP has, the new blocks that BP has taken in Namibia. So these are real exploration blocks in frontier areas. So for the time being, it's an initiative of BP. So we are, of course, talking to each other, but they are not part of the Azul energy activity.
Francesco Gattei: About the ad hoc refining, you have to consider that the dividend is based on two activities. One is one of refining the crude, so the other is related to trading. So these two activities clearly... A different perspective under the current crisis. We do not have yet changed any assumption. It is not material in the overall amount of dividend that we receive in the year. So I will keep the assumption as it is and it is not, eventually we do believe there is a relatively edging between these two activities.
John Rigby: Thanks, Chris.
Chris Coupland: Sorry, the first answer was this was too much greenfield. I'm aware that you are not taking part, but I just wondered why not.
Aldo Napolitano: So as I said, it's an initiative taken by BP, so based on their geological reconstruction. And so I think the question should be made to BP. Sorry.
John Rigby: Thanks, Chris. We're going to move now to Sadan Ali at HSBC.
Sadan Ali: Hi there. Thanks for taking my questions. First of all, could you just remind us of the divestment proceeds you're expecting for the rest of the year? And secondly, I was wondering if there's any further updates or developments in your plans to get back into trading. Of course, a volatile price environment that we're seeing now is a perfect opportunity to capture trading profits, which your peers will benefit from. So I was wondering if the current environment has accelerated your plans at all. Thank you.
Francesco Gattei: On M&A, you know that we have completed Belen in the first quarter, and also the other side we have completed in the acquisition side, Acener, Energia, with Plenitude. We do expect to have a fourth disposal completed during the year, the one that we announced last year. There will be further opportunity that we are valorizing, the dual expression model, some tail assets, or areas that we do not consider core, so there is activity ongoing. of negotiation that are getting closer to completion and we do expect eventually to disclose later on. So remain, as we said before, quite material this year. On top of that, you should include the consolidation of planning as an opportunity. Clearly, Indonesia is another factor that will benefit of the partial disposal of Indonesia, referring to the 10%, that will benefit not only of a scenario that is quite supportive, but also of the new discoveries that are emerging and the overall upside potential that is related to that basin. On the trading, I'll leave it back to you.
Guido Brusco: Yeah, on the trading, we had a journey which started with step one was to include the trading into the... overall value chain of global natural resources to try to capture all the margin. This was the step number one. Step number two was to change the model, so do some transformation internally and turn our trading harm from a pure service provider of the different business to a marketplace where we optimized our activity in the assets driven by the market needs. And then there is this third stage where we wanted to improve our business soft skills in trading. We have a large base of assets. We have refineries, we have storage, we have physical oil, we have physical gas. We have a lot in terms of resources and assets and we wanted to improve our soft skills. So we started this engagement with other trading players and to try to combine the best of the two, the best of an oil company and the best of a trading company. And this is the objective of the third step, which is definitely forthcoming. And this scenario, of course, will accelerate it. But despite this contingent situation, we would have done in both cases.
John Rigby: Thank you. We're going to move to the last question, which is from Bertrand Audi at Kepler. Bertrand.
Bertrand Audi: Yes. Thank you for taking my question. I have just one left. On Venezuela, you had outstanding receivables of around 2.3 billion with an estimated value of $1 billion. Do you expect to recover more than the $1 billion? because of the new Cardon IV Sustainability Agreement?
Guido Brusco: Yeah, as I said before, we just signed one agreement, the Cardon IV Sustainable Agreement, to fix the future. And now with this new engagement and conversation we are having on how to develop the the oil assets, we will fix also the past.
Bertrand Audi: And so how should we think about this, you know, $2.3 billion of outstanding receivables?
Guido Brusco: There will be mechanisms developed to recover this past use within the framework of the development of the oil field. Is that more clear?
Bertrand Audi: Yes, so it's not going to be within the Cardon IV GV, but within the new oil framework.
Guido Brusco: Or a combination. It's very flexible, but it will be essentially... more focused or centered around the oil development.
Francesco Gattei: New development that will clearly give more flexibility in terms of cargo that could be used or new revenues that could emerge by additional production.
John Rigby: Think of it as an holistic solution to all the challenges that we have. Thank you, Bertrand. Thank you, everybody, for joining the Q&A and your attention on Enies Q1. We look forward to speaking to you soon. Have a great weekend.
Conference Operator: Thank you.
