Earnings Call Transcript - E Q1 2026

Operator, 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. (Operator provided instructions) I'm now handing you over to your host to begin today's conference. Thank you.

Claudio Descalzi, Chief Executive Officer (CEO)

Good afternoon. Amid the volatility and disruption to the energy system over the past 2 months, at Eni, we 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 events 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, also higher than the planning assumption set out at our capital market update, were well within a 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 financials in more detail shortly, but we reported EUR 3.5 billion of pro forma EBIT, cash flow from operations of EUR 2.9 billion and pro forma gearing at 15%, well within our expected 10%–15% range. Our pro forma gearing, assuming the full effect of Plenitude 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 7 different countries. The FID of Geng North and Gehem in Indonesia, the dual exploration strategy, realization of a stake in our Baleine discovery. Strong production growth helped by start-up of 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 2 new biorefineries at Sannazzaro and Priolo. But before we get into the details of the financials, 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 900 million barrels per year over the past 10 years. And while our impact activity is somewhat front-loaded in the first 4 months of 2026, we had already added around 1 billion barrels 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 Azule affiliate, as operator, announced the significant oil discovery of Algaita on Block 15/06, preliminary estimates put oil in place at around 500 million barrels and the presence of an FPSO merely 18 kilometers away promises a speedy and efficient development. In Cote d'Ivoire, the Murene 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 a 2 offshore gas discovery estimated to total more than 1 Tcf in place and closed by the existing Bahr Essalam facilities, enabling rapid tieback. In early April, we announced the Denise discovery in the Temsah 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 Kutei Basin, offshore Indonesia. Our preliminary resource estimate is in place gas of 5 Tcf and 300 million barrels of condensate, effectively a second Geng 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 plus the same infrastructure and time to market advantage of Geng. 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. Q1 results were consistent with the scenario conditions we faced 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 execute before the start of the driving season. E&P delivered 9% year-on-year production growth and consistent capture of venture prices. Year-over-year, growth contribution from Norway and Congo were especially notable, and the outcome is after disruption to Middle East volumes in March. GGP pro forma EBIT of EUR 0.3 billion is reflecting the more volatile scenario, and it is consistent with our updated guidance of EUR 1.3 billion in pro forma EBIT. In our transition businesses, pro forma EBITDA of EUR 0.52 billion is consistent with our full year guidance of EUR 2.4 billion. Plenitude that will continue to grow both on clients and new capacity will increase its gross EBITDA by 20% to EUR 1.3 billion, while Enilive will continue to see supportive biorefining margin, and will reach an EBITDA of EUR 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 Versalis highlight some evident progress in the reported results of curtailing its losses in line with our plan. Contribution from associates reflected the macro scenario condition with 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 operations generated was in line with our expectation with good contribution from associated 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 it's not out of the ordinary in that context. We do expect to reverse this in the coming quarters. CapEx was EUR 1.9 billion, in line with the full year amount of EUR 7 billion for the year. Net CapEx was broadly equal to gross with limited portfolio activity in this quarter beyond announcing but not completing the sale of a 10% stake in Baleine in Ivory Coast to SOCAR. After the quarter ended, we completed on the previously announced acquisition by Plenitude of Acea Energy for around EUR 500 million. We paid the third quarterly dividend referring to 2025 in March and repurchased EUR 280 million in share. Shares in issue have reduced by 17% since the end of 2021. Pro forma gearing of 15% incorporates M&A transactions announced but not yet concluded and represent 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 consolidated net debt over the following quarter as Plenitude funding is restructured. If we incorporate also this effect, our pro forma gearing is actually at 12%. Updating our guidance for 2026, we confirm the outlook for E&P 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 EUR 50 per megawatt hour from EUR 36 as we believe that higher price will be necessary for the refilling of empty storage, and refining margin in Europe our term to $8 per barrel from $6. From a financial perspective, reflecting the changed scenario underlying outperformance, we now estimate cash flow from operations, pre-working capital of EUR 13.8 billion, up 20% from EUR 11.5 billion set in March. Applying our proposed updated distribution policy, this implies a share buyback raised by around 90% to EUR 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 prices 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 shareholders for approval at the AGM on 6th of May. And this concludes my remarks. And along with my colleagues from senior management on the call, I am ready to take your questions.

Operator, Operator

(Operator provided instructions) I now leave the floor to Mr. Jon Rigby for the Q&A session.

Jonathon Rigby, Head of Investor Relations / Moderator

Thanks, operator. (Operator provided instructions) And we're going to start with Biraj at RBC.

Biraj Borkhataria, Analyst, RBC

(technical difficulty) How should we think about that EUR 55 million this quarter and 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 net to Eni?

Jonathon Rigby, Head of Investor Relations / Moderator

Biraj, can you just restate your first question because we missed the start of it?

Biraj Borkhataria, Analyst, RBC

Sorry. It's the transformation costs, the EUR 55 million you've broken out, what should we expect for the full year?

Claudio Descalzi, Chief Executive Officer (CEO)

Okay. I'll 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 distributions that are related to the capability of funding of this entity stand-alone, but we do not disclose this amount that will be in any case irrelevant.

Adriano Alfani, Head of Finance / Group Financial Executive

Sure. Thanks for the question. I mean on the EUR 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 an annualized basis, roughly EUR 50 million of efficiency that we are going to bring. So you should not multiply EUR 55 million or annualize it, but you should discount about EUR 50 million at least of efficiency that we are going to bring. But you need to consider that today, the sites are in transformation for the future, adding value through the new project because we are going to start the new activities. So this is something that in the future will generate value. And by the way, it is incorporated in our CFO guidance.

Jonathon Rigby, Head of Investor Relations / Moderator

Thanks, Biraj. Sorry, one second. Apologies. We'll now move to Alejandro Vigil at Santander.

Alejandro Vigil, Analyst, Santander

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 you are 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 0.5 million barrels per day. With the new discoveries, is this now a very conservative assumption? Or do you reiterate this 0.5 million as a guidance for the production?

Claudio Descalzi, Chief Executive Officer (CEO)

I leave to Guido Brusco to answer both questions.

Guido Brusco, Head of Exploration & Production (Upstream)

First, on 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; 3% of our total production comes from the Middle East. As far as products and LNG, exposure is also limited, if not zero impact on LNG, thanks to the flexibility of our portfolio and the diversified geographical footprint; we could basically cope with the missing volumes coming from Qatar essentially. For products — gasoline, diesel and even jet fuel — we are prepared to honor all our commitments with our customers. On Indonesia, yes, 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 Geng and having also another stranded asset there, Gula, which is give and take 2 Tcf, we can basically replicate another hub in the region. So clearly, this will raise the production target in the medium to long term to more than 500; I would say 700–750 might be a reasonable figure.

Jonathon Rigby, Head of Investor Relations / Moderator

Thank you, Guido. We're going to move to Josh at UBS.

Joshua Eliot Stone, Analyst, UBS

Two questions. One, just on the buyback and your decision to list it. Obviously, I understand there's 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 second question, looking at your macro deck, one thing that does stand out is the gas assumption at EUR 50 per megawatt hour, which is above the curve. You're involved in the market, your 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?

Claudio Descalzi, Chief Executive Officer (CEO)

Thank you for the question that are partially connected clearly. We decided to move the buyback because we believe actually that it is 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 events at the time had 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 bombings on the facilities that occurred at that specific time and were expanded in the following weeks. And we see there is a continuous, practically 2 months already inside the crisis. This crisis is not just a matter of reaching a sort of ceasefire or 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. For this reason, we believe that there is a quite unexpected complacency by the market on the duration of this crisis that appears, I would say, much more impactful than the market is probably evaluating. On gas specifically, we believe that in a EUR 40–EUR 45 megawatt hour environment with 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 and facilities to restart the flow. You have to consider there are also bottlenecks in terms of tankers or ships and clearly LNG carriers. 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 will 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 supportive. So we believe that both on oil and on gas, our price deck that we have uplifted is still conservative.

Jonathon Rigby, Head of Investor Relations / Moderator

We are going to now move to Alessandro Pozzi at Mediobanca.

Alessandro Pozzi, Analyst, Mediobanca

The first one is on the number of discoveries that you've made so far this year. I was wondering there is — in your capital allocation framework, there is a 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 is there 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 macro assumptions as well.

Francesco Gattei, Chief Transition and Financial Officer

Okay. I will just give a very short introduction, then I leave to Guido Brusco and Cristian Signoretto for the two questions. Clearly, CapEx, we are strict to a level of CapEx that we want to keep under a certain range. You have to consider in exploration that there are exploration activities that are occurring inside our business combinations or affiliates, associates that are reported in equity. So once you see a discovery in Azule or in Indonesia, this will have a different treatment in terms of CapEx. Then I leave to Guido to explain also why CapEx will be relatively softer in this case.

Guido Brusco, Head of Exploration & Production (Upstream)

Yes. I think there are two handles here. One is some of the discoveries are near infrastructure. So our tiebacks, 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, those are tie-ins with low cost. 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.

Cristian Signoretto, Head of Gas & Power Business

Well, on guidance of GGP. 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 situation broadly along the next months, given the situation that Francesco just explained before to you.

Alessandro Pozzi, Analyst, Mediobanca

Is there any new arbitration that we need to be aware of for the rest of the year?

Cristian Signoretto, Head of Gas & Power Business

Say it again, sorry?

Alessandro Pozzi, Analyst, Mediobanca

Is there any new arbitration that we need to be aware of for the next... ?

Cristian Signoretto, Head of Gas & Power Business

No. Absolutely not.

Jonathon Rigby, Head of Investor Relations / Moderator

Thanks, Alessandro. Next, we're going to move to Al Syme at Citigroup.

Alastair Syme, Analyst, Citigroup

First question 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, just a question around the biofuels market. Obviously, we've seen 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, I look and see sustainable aviation fuel, SAF, is 40% more expensive than jet fuel. So I wonder how you think about the issue of affordability of biofuels in your forecasting and investment planning?

Claudio Descalzi, Chief Executive Officer (CEO)

Yes, about the Plenitude amount of debt that we are going to deconsolidate is EUR 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'll leave to Stefano Ballista to answer about the biofuel and SAF.

Stefano Ballista, Head of Renewable Fuels / Biofuels Division

Yes. No, as you said, the scenario significantly improved. And actually, the main reason for the scenario improvement is driven by market fundamentals. It's driven by the demand increase that we are seeing due to the regulation and the mandates 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 U.S. with a 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 Europe, we are about 2% — you can create significant demand, but pretty much affecting marginally the overall cost position. So we've got significant space for improvement, not only on renewable diesel as it's happening, but also on sustainable aviation fuel with a marginal impact on a marginal 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.

Alastair Syme, Analyst, Citigroup

Stefano, I mean, Europe's largest airline has basically said they can't afford jet fuel at this price. And I accept the mandate is 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, SAF, if it's 40% more expensive than the price of jet fuel, which they can't afford? It seems to be a conundrum.

Claudio Descalzi, Chief Executive Officer (CEO)

Okay. I can — we can comment about what was the statement. But from our point of view, clearly, biofuel is now a solution to have a resource pool in a situation of scarcity. The premium eventually could reflect the impact of the 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 industrial process. It's also a matter of having this process aligned in terms of size and materiality with demand potential. We do expect that after this crisis, there will be as a reply, not only an environmental solution, but also a potential diversification response to deploy a larger use of this kind of alternative solution for ships, for airplanes and for cars.

Jonathon Rigby, Head of Investor Relations / Moderator

Thanks, Francesco. Thanks, Al. We're now going to move to Michele Della Vigna at Goldman Sachs.

Michele Della Vigna, Analyst, Goldman Sachs

I wanted to follow up on your exceptional exploration success. And I believe you've also completed the first deepwater well in Libya and I 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 inventory days can go before flights are actually starting to be grounded? And how much do you think that in your refineries, you can actually tilt towards more jet fuel production?

Claudio Descalzi, Chief Executive Officer (CEO)

I leave to Guido to answer both questions.

Guido Brusco, Head of Exploration & Production (Upstream)

So the one in Libya has resulted in a noncommercial discovery. But it was very important for us to have a better understanding of the basin, which is quite large, huge, diverse in terms of number of prospects. You have to think that this is a block where the last well drilled was by us in the early 2000s. So we are talking of a large basin with quite a number of untapped resources. It's the first well, but we'll have, for sure, more understanding of the basin. As far as concerning the jet fuel, as I said before, we are prepared to satisfy and honor our commitments with our customer. Of course, the situation is very different and diverse if you look at the different flight operators and suppliers. But as far as Eni is concerned, we are prepared to satisfy our customers.

Jonathon Rigby, Head of Investor Relations / Moderator

Thanks, Michele. We're going to now move to Paul Redman at BNP.

Paul Redman, Analyst, BNP Paribas

Yes. First question is just come back to Enilive. 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 for 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?

Francesco Gattei, Chief Transition and Financial Officer

I'll let Stefano answer on Enilive, and then I will reply on the working capital.

Stefano Goberti, Head of Enilive / Bio-refining Operations

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 is what's true in Europe. And it's, as I said before, linked to mandates, so to fundamentals. An example, we got recently approved in Holland, the new GHG target is 28% versus a rate of 14%, and we got no more double counting. So, a good news, to be honest, fully expected. Same in the U.S., we got a market significantly increasing, again, linked to fundamentals. Even in the first quarter, we got an average on the RIN about $1.5 per RIN. It was less than $1 last year. And now we are about $1.8 after the approval of the new target. So the market was already expecting the new mandate. 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, Enilive as a whole reported EUR 220 million of EBITDA pro forma adjusted. This means EUR 50 million above the first quarter of last year. And this has been fully driven by biorefinery performance. It actually, on top of driving the upside, balanced the partial pressure on retail prices that we are experiencing in Europe linked to fossil fuel prices. On top, I want to highlight that actually in the first quarter, we had Venice under maintenance and upgrading maintenance. So it has been shut down for the whole quarter. And that result has been achieved without that production. Venice is going to come back in place during the second quarter. And we're going to be at full potential for the second half, being in 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, the one related to fundamentals. The extra upside, assuming the extra upside is going to last for the time being, is going to get additional value that we are capturing and we're going to keep capturing.

Francesco Gattei, Chief Transition and Financial Officer

No, 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 recognized in the first quarter.

Jonathon Rigby, Head of Investor Relations / Moderator

Thanks, Paul. So watch this space. The next questions come from Lydia Rainforth of Barclays.

Lydia Rainforth, Analyst, Barclays

Two questions, if I could. One, I just wanted to touch on Venezuela and what you're seeing there. And then the second one, 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 just if there's anything — those sort of conversations, or is it just too early for that at this point?

Guido Brusco, Head of Exploration & Production (Upstream)

On Venezuela, just a month ago, we've signed an agreement, which we call Cardón IV Sustainability Agreement, which would allow us to basically produce sustainably the gas and provide energy to the country. This implies also future activity to do some debottlenecking to the plant to increase slightly the amount of volume to the domestic market and to have an export outlet for the larger resources, which Perla carries. Basically, Perla is a reservoir of 20 Tcf. So there is quite a significant potential for export. On the oil side, we have two assets there, one 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. 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.

Jonathon Rigby, Head of Investor Relations / Moderator

And Lydia's second question was on host governments and changing.

Lydia Rainforth, Analyst, Barclays

Accelerate the exploration.

Guido Brusco, Head of Exploration & Production (Upstream)

Broadly, there is, of course, a positive reaction from governments. We are noticing in several geographies that governments are more prone to provide the right enablers for the operator to increase exploration, provide fiscal terms to produce stranded resources. Of course, there is a price element which plays a significant role, but many governments are trying to introduce enablers to make it possible. The focus is on energy security; most of them are trying to maximize domestic production on the government side. On the international oil company side, diversification is another pillar of the strategy. It has proven in the last 5 years that two major providers of energy, Russia and the Middle East, for both oil and gas, have proven that they could fail to deliver and diversification in other geographies like Far East and South America or the Americas 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 capital markets update, the Americas, Africa and Far East will play a larger role in our portfolio.

Jonathon Rigby, Head of Investor Relations / Moderator

Thanks, Guido. We're now going to move to Martijn Rats at Morgan Stanley. Martijn?

Martijn Rats, Analyst, Morgan Stanley

I've got two. First of all, I just thought I'll ask you a broad question about demand destruction. It clearly is a topic and 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 any more of it in the 1Q sort of statement, but that should still be on the schedule for later this year. I just wanted to confirm that.

Francesco Gattei, Chief Transition and Financial Officer

About demand destruction, I think that thinking about demand destruction in a matter of 1.5 months, it's too early. So I think that demand is there. Clearly, there is potentially some small reduction by 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 leave to Guido for completing the question.

Guido Brusco, Head of Exploration & Production (Upstream)

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. The majority of the major EPC tenders are progressing, and we are estimating to complete by Q2 the majority of those and in early Q3 the remaining. In parallel, a significant progress has been made also in LNG and NGL marketing as well as on project financing. So definitely, we're setting up ourselves and our partners and all the stakeholders in Argentina for an FID by the year-end.

Jonathon Rigby, Head of Investor Relations / Moderator

Thanks, Martijn. 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.

Martijn Rats, Analyst, Morgan Stanley

Excellent. Yes.

Jonathon Rigby, Head of Investor Relations / Moderator

Moving on, we've got Matt Lofting at JPMorgan. Matt, have you got some questions?

Matthew Lofting, Analyst, JPMorgan

Yes. 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 sort of 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?

Francesco Gattei, Chief Transition and Financial Officer

Yes. About the cash flow from operations results, the fact is clearly that in the first quarter, as we mentioned, there were downtimes, still 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 capture partially but just in the last month of the quarter. There is a ramp-up of production in E&P to improve the further benefit along the year. And on the other side, you have to consider that there are distributions from associates that follow in certain cases quarterly, but in other cases, there are half-year or yearly distributions. So there are various elements that will determine a different distribution in the next 3 quarters versus what we had in the first quarter. The other question was about the unusual distribution. We had the policy and we apply the policy. I think that I do expect that this distribution could become potentially even more sizable in the coming quarters if the market persists.

Jonathon Rigby, Head of Investor Relations / Moderator

Thanks, Matt. We're going to move to Massimo Bonisoli at Equita.

Massimo Bonisoli, Analyst, Equita

Two questions. One on the discovery in Indonesia regarding the SEARAH 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 you 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?

Francesco Gattei, Chief Transition and Financial Officer

On the sensitivity, we gave and applied assuming a broader volatility range. So we're different than the usual sensitivity that we fixed on a shorter size fluctuation. Clearly, volatility and sensitivity is just a theoretical number. We do not capture all the arbitrage also because the arbitrage cannot be modeled because we don't know where this potential gap and the effect on the physical barrel bottleneck could emerge. So you keep it as a key reference, but it's clear there will be some specific spot situations where the sensitivity is not fully 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. I'll leave that to Guido.

Guido Brusco, Head of Exploration & Production (Upstream)

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.

Jonathon Rigby, Head of Investor Relations / Moderator

Thanks, Massimo. We're going to move to Fergus Neve at Rothschild. Fergus?

Fergus Neve, Analyst, Rothschild

There's been a flurry of exploration success at the start of this year and the 1 billion BOE of resources discovered is very impressive. I just wanted to know whether there was any color 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 improved 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?

Francesco Gattei, Chief Transition and Financial Officer

I'll leave then to Aldo Napolitano for the exploration and Adriano Alfani back for Versalis.

Aldo Napolitano, Head of Exploration

Yes. In terms of the 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, in the Kutei 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 targeted 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, Head of Chemicals & Industrial Transformation

So on the chemical side, if we look back to Q1, the transformation has a positive impact of roughly EUR 100 million. Although we are facing a negative scenario because in the first quarter, clearly, there was a sort of a time lag between what Francesco was talking about before, the effect on demand versus the negative effect of supply because we had higher costs in terms of feedstock, higher costs in terms of utilities. So at the end, the positive impact quarter-on-quarter at pro forma level is a little less than EUR 100 million because of the effect of the negative scenario, roughly EUR 85 million. If we go into 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 Q1, also catching some shortage that we see on the polymer market despite still the high cost in terms of feedstock and utilities.

Jonathon Rigby, Head of Investor Relations / Moderator

Thank you, Adriano. We're going to now move to Mark Wilson at Jefferies. Mark?

Mark Wilson, Analyst, Jefferies

Okay. 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, yet more exploration success, deepwater, talking about additional developments as well. You commented previously, Claudio, on the service market 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?

Francesco Gattei, Chief Transition and Financial Officer

Yes. About the first question on the margin — potential risk of margin squeeze — this is for us a relative risk because substantially, we are in our chain of supply 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 to 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 chain.

Guido Brusco, Head of Exploration & Production (Upstream)

There are two elements driving cost at the moment. One is short-term cost inflation, 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 inflation. But 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: an increase in general activity in the upstream. We've noticed that if you look at the inflation trends from 2022 to 2023, 2024, up to 2025, we already had a 15% cost increase starting from 2022. Pre-war 2026 we were in the region of 3% to 4% cost increase. But if you add up this short term, the range would expand from 4% to 7%. Of course, this is the average. There are costs which in the long term are more under pressure like vessel installation for deepwater activity and others which are less under pressure like onshore drilling rigs, but this is the general overview that we see in the market. That is backed up also by sources like IHS UCCI Index.

Jonathon Rigby, Head of Investor Relations / Moderator

Jonathon: Good stuff. Thanks, Guido. Thanks, Mark. We're going to move now to Chris Kuplent at Bank of America. Chris?

Christopher Kuplent, Analyst, Bank of America

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 Azule? I'm talking about Namibia, sorry. And maybe you can tell us why not. And second, even smaller detail, I just wonder whether between your CMD and now, you've changed your expectations regarding receiving dividends from ADNOC Refining.

Francesco Gattei, Chief Transition and Financial Officer

I leave the answer to Aldo for the block in Namibia and then on ADNOC, I will reply later.

Aldo Napolitano, Head of Exploration

So if I understood correctly, you're talking about the blocks that BP has taken in Namibia. These are real exploration blocks in frontier areas. 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 Azule Energy activity.

Francesco Gattei, Chief Transition and Financial Officer

About the ADNOC Refining, you have to consider that that dividend is based on two activities. One is refining the crudes. The other is related to trading. These two activities clearly have different perspectives under the current crisis. We have not yet changed any assumption. It's not material in the overall amount of dividend that we received in the year. So I will keep the assumption as it is and it's not — eventually, we do believe there is a relative hedging between these two activities.

Christopher Kuplent, Analyst, Bank of America

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.

Francesco Gattei, Chief Transition and Financial Officer

So as I said, it's an initiative taken by BP based on their geological reconstruction. I think the question should be addressed to BP.

Jonathon Rigby, Head of Investor Relations / Moderator

Thanks, Chris. We're going to move now to Sadnan Ali at HSBC.

Sadnan Ali, Analyst, HSBC

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, the 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?

Francesco Gattei, Chief Transition and Financial Officer

On M&A, you know that we have completed Baleine in the first quarter. And also on the other side, we have completed in the acquisition side HNR, Energea, with Plenitude. We do expect to have a further disposal completed during the year. You have the one that we announced last year. There will be further opportunities that we are valorizing. We do explore divestment of some tail assets or areas that we do not consider core. So there is activity ongoing negotiations 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 deconsolidation of Plenitude as an opportunity. Clearly, Indonesia is another factor that will benefit from the partial disposal in Indonesia, referring to the 10% that will benefit not only from 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 hand back to Guido.

Guido Brusco, Head of Exploration & Production (Upstream)

Yes. On the trading, we had a journey which started with step one: include trading into the overall value chain of global natural resources to try to capture all the margin. This was step one. Step two was to change the model, to do some transformation internally and turn our trading arm from a pure service provider of the different business to a marketplace where we optimized our activity in the assets driven by market needs. Then there is this third stage where we wanted to improve our soft skills in trading. We have a large base of assets — refineries, storage, physical oil, physical gas. We wanted to improve our soft skills. So we started engagement with other trading players to try to combine the best of the two: the best of an oil company and the best of a trading company. This is the objective of the third step, which is forthcoming. This scenario of volatility will accelerate it. But despite this contingent situation, we would have done it in both cases.

Jonathon Rigby, Head of Investor Relations / Moderator

We're going to move to the last question, which is from Bertrand Hodee at Kepler.

Bertrand Hodee, Analyst, Kepler

I have just one left. On Venezuela, you had outstanding receivables of around $2.3 billion, with an estimated realized value of $1 billion. Do you expect to recover more than the $1 billion because of the new Cardón IV Sustainability Agreement?

Guido Brusco, Head of Exploration & Production (Upstream)

Yes. As I said before, we just signed the Cardón IV Sustainability Agreement to fix the future. Now with this new engagement and conversation we are having on how to develop the oil assets, we will fix also the past.

Bertrand Hodee, Analyst, Kepler

And so how should we think about this $2.3 billion of outstanding receivables?

Guido Brusco, Head of Exploration & Production (Upstream)

There will be mechanisms developed to recover these past dues within the framework of the development of the oil field. Is that more clear?

Bertrand Hodee, Analyst, Kepler

Yes. So it's not going to be within the Cardón IV JV, but within the new oil framework?

Guido Brusco, Head of Exploration & Production (Upstream)

Or a combination. It's very flexible, but it will be essentially more focused or centered around the oil development.

Francesco Gattei, Chief Transition and Financial Officer

New development will clearly give more flexibility in terms of cargo that could be used or new revenues that could emerge by additional production.

Jonathon Rigby, Head of Investor Relations / Moderator

Think of it as a holistic solution to all the challenges that we have. Thank you, Bertrand. Thank you, everybody, for joining the Q&A and your attention on Eni's Q1. We look forward to speaking to you soon. Have a great weekend. Thank you.

Operator, Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining. The conference is now over. You may disconnect your telephones.