Conference Transcript - E 2026-02-26

Claudio Descalzi, CEO

Good morning, everyone. 2025 was a year of exceptional progress at any. We developed and executed our distinctive strategy, in many cases exceeding our original target. We will discuss in detail our update plan at the forecoming capital markets update in March, but I can say at this point that 2025 provide an excellent guide to what you should expect the future to hold for any. Last year's result proved the value of our consistent strategies, strong operational and financial performance, timely project delivery to support growth and diversified investment for the short and long term to generate further value for investors. Specifically looking in detail at the three main business pillars the successes are compelling first global natural resources we started up six major projects as planned this supported an underlying production increase of four percent well above our original full year guidance and growth above seven percent over the 2022 2025 period leading among our peers Project execution is a clear strength of ours, and both Agog in Angola and Congo LNG are further examples of our leadership in time to market. In addition, we took FIDs on four major new projects, three of which are operated, driving a strong resource-repressing ratio of above 160 percent, meaning we currently have 500,000 bar per day of production under development securing our medium-term outlook. At the portfolio level we have also established a new platform of growth by creating our largest business combination with Petronas in Indonesia and Malaysia and we are progressing our Argentina LNG project with YPF and XRG alongside our continued exploration success under PINSA long-term outlook We discovered 900 million barrels of new resources in 2025, reaffirming our industry-leading track record. Now, over 10 billion barrels of resources discovered since 2014, at less than one dollar per barrel, from multiple geographies and different geological plays. Our focus on value as well as volume is also emphasized by our continuing action to valorize our resources through dual exploration, as we did in Indonesia with the business combination in Codewar and high-grade our portfolio through tail asset divestments. GGP is a business we have comprehensively transformed in the past few years and not withstanding a softer market, we deliver EBIT above 1 billion euro for a fourth consecutive year. gas to power was also a strong contributor in 2025 and together this result emphasized the work underway to capture more margin from our equity production second are transition activities they generate material growth and value creation and are important in diversifying and strengthening any earnings in the year that was not remarkable for market improvement we proved the robustness of our integrated business models and we have been rewarded with strong earnings 2 billion euro of EBITDA and by the validation from the market with a contribution of 5.8 billion euro from top private equity firms these deals were completed with a multiple around three times those of A&E stand-alone, implying over 23 billion euros of enterprise value for these new business lines. We are locking in further growth with both Plenitude and A&E Live. Plenitude has expanded its renewable capacity by more than 40% in 2025 and will add 10% to its customer base in 2026 on closing the agreed Acer Energy acquisition. And Elive has three new biorefineries under construction and two more have recently reached AFID, together representing a further net 2 million tons of annual capacity. And third, industrial transformation. changes in the energy market bring challenges that we are successfully mitigating but also opportunities in this contest we are advancing the transformation of our traditional refineries we have set out the decisive measures to address challenges in our chemical business that are the same impacting the entire european industry in 2025 we accelerate these actions, causing the crackers that bring the Ciempriolo three to six months earlier than planned. At the same time, we are transforming Bersales towards bio, circular and specialized products. The strategic and operational progress achieved in 2025 translates into exceptional financial delivery. Robust financial position is critical in managing the cycle, preserving flexibility and delivering our strategy. Last year, CFA 4 at €12.5 billion was €1.5 billion ahead of plan on a scenario-adjusted basis. Responding promptly to the more challenging scenario, we cut gross capital from a planned €9 billion to €8.5 billion euro and we identified cash initiatives totaling 4 billion euro raised from an initial 2 billion euro including delivering 0.5 billion of savings. Net capbacks on a performance basis was lower than 5 billion euro versus our initial expectation of 6.5 to 7 billion as we executed on more portfolio activity for better value. As a result, performance gearing at year-end was 14%, with net debt down almost €3 billion over the year. These outcomes gave us the opportunity to raise our share buyback by 20% from €1.5 billion to €1.8 billion, achieving the unique combination in 2025 of both lowering debt and enhancing shareholder distribution. In Q4, reform-adjusted EBIT was 2.9 billion euro, up 6% year-on-year, despite the lower oil price and weaker dollar. We reported the excellent EMP result, with production up 7% year-on-year and 5% sequentially at 1.839 million borrowers per day, underpinned by the positive impact of 2025 startups. Full-year production of 1.728 million borrowers per day was 2% above our guidance for the year. GDP Q4 EBIT of 0.1 billion euro delivered on our raised full-year guidance of more than 1 billion euros despite relatively low volatile markets. Plenty of any life together delivered 2 billion euros of pro-form adjusted EBIT in the year and any life benefited from improved bio-margins in the quarter, part of setting seasonally lower marketing. Refining return to profit in the quarter all be held back by relatively low utilization rates, while chemicals continue to see a weak scenario setting the early benefits of the restructuring underway. Q4 adjusted net profit was 1.2 billion euro with a tax rate of 37% as we adjusted to a full year rate of 44% just below guidance. CFFO in Q4 was €3 billion representing excellent cash conversion again, held by the material cash initiatives we undertook in the year. Full-year cash flow at €12.5 billion was €1.5 billion above our full-year guidance on a scenario-adjusted basis. Thanks to a release in working capital and our actions around the portfolio, we were able to fund our capex, shareholder distributions and other commitments and also to significantly reduce debt. Gross organics capex in the quarter was 2.6 billion euro, taking the full year figure to 8.5 billion euro, 0.5 billion less than our original plan. Valorizations and portfolio activities have raised around 10 billion euro over the past two years. In 2025, we completed more than 6.5 billion euros in valorization of portfolio activity, which meant that, adjusting to a performer basis, net capex was lower than 5 billion euros, around 2 billion below our original plan. But 2025 is not a one-off year. For 2026, we expect, to limit our gross capex to around €7 billion and net capex at around €5 billion. We reduce net debt over 2025 by almost 3 billion, as we said, bringing gearing to 15% at the year-end, or 14% on pro forma basis. We can confirm that we expect pro forma gearing in 2026 to remain at historically low levels at between 10% to 15%. Our shareholder distribution details, we have to revert to the CMU in March, but we can confirm a full-funded, attractive and growing dividend is our first priority. In the last five years, we have raised the dividend by an average 5% per year, reflecting underlining growth and the reduction of sharing issues. At the same time, we have additional tools of distribution via the buyback that reflects our policy of sharing cash flow, generation and upside. In 2025, for example, we raised the buyback by 20%, the third occasion in the past four years, we have increased distributions. In conclusion, 2025 was a clear outcome of any strategy in action. Looking ahead, we will update on our plan in March, but strategy remained unchanged. The choices we make in how we do business are driven by our industrial, technological and commercial strength and by a business model that has proven to perform in strong and soft market conditions. The upstream will grow organically at a sector-leading rate, leveraging our exploration successes and our proven ability to fast-track time-to-market while managing costs and delivering the value from our business combinations and partnerships. On the energy transition, we will deliver the programs outlined for Plenitude and Anilide while developing CCS, fusion, battery storage in data centers for hyperscalers coupled with blue power and exploring opportunities in critical minerals. Portfolio activity will again be material in 2026 as we continue to pursue discipline, capital alignment and value disclosure. In March, we will share with you the details that underpin this outlook and which support continued highly attractive investor returns. And now, the rest of any top managers are ready to take your question. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. This is the conference operator. Please press star and one for questions. First question is from Alejandro Vigio Santander.

Alejandro Vigil, Analyst — Santander

Yes. Hello. Thank you for taking my questions and congratulations for the results. I have two questions about the upstream business. Definitely you will elaborate more on the Capital Markets Day. But I'm very interested in the outlook for this year, thanks to the contribution of the joint venture with Petronas. You can elaborate about potential increase in production driven by this joint venture. And the second question is about Kazakhstan. There is a lot of noise in the media, and I would like to know your view about the situation in the country.

Claudio Descalzi, CEO

Okay, thank you. Thank you for the questions. I'll just give you a few words about Petronas and the outlook in Kazakhstan, and I will give Guido the possibility to expand and elaborate on these two questions. So Petronas, I think that Petronas will be finalized by the second end of the second quarter. and is going to give a contribution, clearly, yes. We cannot be precise now. I think that we can give you more detail in March, but clearly it's going to give you a contribution in terms of production for six months. And as you know, we are going to have immediately a company that is producing about 300,000 bar per day, but we have already a project that we're going to implement at FED in the next years to reach 500,000 bar per day. We already drilled Indonesia, as you know, successful wealth that we can tie into the existing infrastructure. So we talk about reserves, not just resources. Kazakhstan, I think that is a long story because in the last 15 years, every three or two years, we have some renegotiation and some, I can say, disputes, but more discussion because we are friends. And as always happens between friends, we always find solutions. I'm positive about the future, but now I think that Guido can take over and give you more detail. Yeah.

Speaker 13

Thanks, Claudio. So, sorry, barring from more details coming in the next CMU, of course, the growth of production next year will be driven by the project we have started up recently. So we will see more production coming from Congo, from Norway, from Angola, from UAE, and, of course, from Indonesia. But as I said, more details will come in a few more weeks. As far as Kazakhstan, of course, as you know, the Republic has advanced several arbitration claims regarding production performance, cost recovery, environmental matters, sulfur storage, and the JV is defending. There is a broad claim here, which is in the arbitration court at the moment, and we do not expect a result before 2027-2028. However, we continue, as the operator is saying, confirm that operations have been conducted in compliance with the law of Kazakhstan, and the operator had always possessed the required permits. And therefore, we are challenging this sulfur fine in all the courts.

Massimo Bonisoli, Analyst — Equitar

Thank you.

Jonathon Rigby, Head of Investor Relations

Thanks, Alex. We can now pass over to Michele De La Vigne at Goldman Sachs. Michele, do you want to ask your questions?

Michele De La Vigne, Analyst — Goldman Sachs

Thank you very much. and congratulations on the results. I wanted to ask two questions. First, on your CapEx guidance for 26 of 7 billion, I was wondering if you could walk us through the bridge between the 1.5 this year and the 7. Clearly, the deconsolidation of Indonesia plays a part, but if you could give us a bit more detail. And then secondly, the more we look at all of your discoveries and access in the last couple of years, It feels like you probably have the best pipeline of new projects you've ever had in your corporate history. How should we think about your priorities for FID in 2026, given the wealth of opportunities between Namibia, Indonesia, Cote d'Ivoire, and all of your recent discoveries?

Claudio Descalzi, CEO

Okay, thank you. Thank you for the question. So we said that we cut our capex, or we reduced our capex from 8.5 this year to 7 billion. That is a reduction in terms of capex optimization. We are not reducing the growth, we are not touching the growth of the company, but just we became more efficient because we have a strategy or we apply the strategy to be more efficient starting from the exploration. So exploring and go to the place where we have existing facilities and then this year we had a very excellent success. Also last year we are moving at 1 billion or less than 1 billion resource discoveries in the right place where we have infrastructure, that means that we can continue to reduce CAPEX because we need less CAPEX to produce more, more, more production. That was a strategy that is not something that you can start overnight. It's something that we start in 2011, 12, 13. It's something that we built day by day because we never stop exploration. We never stop exploring. We never stop developing. We never stop going directly to the development and working as upstreamers. So that is the reason why we can reduce our gross capex. Then we have other points that maybe Guido can explain to you that is an additional important lesson that can explain why we can reduce capex. Guido, you can explain.

Speaker 13

Yeah, Claudio. And I mean, just building on what you were saying about the advantaged barrels, the project we have started up in the last four or five years and the prospective project, which you will have more visibility in the capital market update, our project with, first of all, low unit development cost. Second, they have longer plateaus. So we can devote less capex to maintain the production and fight the decline and more capex for the growth at the same capex level in a nutshell. As far as concerned, your question, Michele, about what will come next year, of course we have a great degree of optionality. We have a very large and diverse portfolio of projects, but clearly next year, the project that we will focus more in terms of FIDs, Argentina, Ivory Coast, Cyprus, plus a few more geographies in Africa.

Jonathon Rigby, Head of Investor Relations

Is that okay, Michele?

Michele De La Vigne, Analyst — Goldman Sachs

Perfect. Thank you very much.

Jonathon Rigby, Head of Investor Relations

Thank you. We're going to now move on to Biraj Bakatari, RBC. Biraj, if you're there, ask your questions.

Biraj Bakatari, Analyst — RBC

Hi. Thanks for taking my question. Just to follow up on the CapEx point and the number you guided today, how much of that year-on-year change is the Indonesia CapEx coming out as you deconsolivate it? and is there anything you can say on the CFFO contribution that will be removed also when you deconsolidate that production? And then the second question is just on Vosalis. You've now closed down the crackers, but we haven't seen that sort of come through in the P&L. So do you still expect to be break-even in 2027, and what should we expect for 2026? Thank you.

Claudio Descalzi, CEO

Okay, Capex Indonesia. We already said that we can start working on Indonesia after the finalization of the business combination of the new company that we expect in the second quarter. So I think in any case, the impact on CAPEX on Indonesia will not be very large this year, because then we have FAD to take, maybe in 26, but mainly in 2027. For Versali, I think Adriano, the CEO of Versali, can you give some answer in some light?

Speaker 12

Sure. Thank you for the question. We have seen some improvement in the second half of 2025 following the shutdown of the two cracker that, as we said before, we move forward and we stop harder than what was the original plan. Unfortunately, the positive impact, although you remember what we said in the previous call, that the impact of the two major cracker shutdown, you start to see after 12, 18 months. So we've seen some positive impact, and this has helped in order to mitigate the deterioration in this scenario. So we've seen improvement in the second half of 2025 compared to the second half of 2024, and we continue to see also in the beginning of the months of 2026. We are taking additional actions in order to mitigate the plan that is not coming as expected in terms of scenario. I'm pretty sure that you have seen so many shutdowns have been announced in the last three years, close to 160 shutdown announcements. And in the next capital market update, we are going to share the plan for the next two, three years.

Biraj Bakatari, Analyst — RBC

Thank you.

Jonathon Rigby, Head of Investor Relations

Thanks, Baraj. We're going to move to Lydia Rainforth at Barclays. Lydia, if you're there.

Lydia Rainforth, Analyst — Barclays

Thank you. And good afternoon. Two questions, if I could, please. The first one, on the exploration side, and building a little bit on Michele's question earlier, You've clearly been very, very successful in what you've done. Can you actually give us what the success rate is now? Are we looking at sort of one in two, four out of five? Well, I'm just trying to work out what that success rate is. And then secondly, just on AI, clearly you've got a lot of computing power. I'm just wondering what you're seeing, if you're seeing any benefits at this point or what your plans are around that.

Speaker 13

On exploration, last year we've been very successful and success rate was exceptionally high, as you could also notice from the very low write-off we basically written in our books. So it was really exceptionally high, very close to 100%, the success rate last year. On the AI, as you may be aware, last year we've opened a new business line on data center coupled with the gas-fired plant. gas-fired plant. We have a plan with international partners to develop a data center in the north of Italy, close to Milan, up to 500 megawatt, split in different phases. We have a first phase, which will go from 80 to 100 megawatt, and the second phase to 500 megawatt. And And this is in an area which is underdeveloped, and in a country like Italy, which has foreseen a demand of AI center by 2030, up to the impact. Of course, we are a forerunner in terms of application of technology and super-computational capacity on our activity and the exploration success is one example of it of course AI will apply also on other segment of the business in the upstream like the production improvement drilling and project improvement, rotating machine enhancement so we expect a significant impact on the AI Just to remind that in the industry, we have already one of the lowest downtime for the production facilities, which is less than 1%, while the average of the industry would make data is around 3.5%.

Lydia Rainforth, Analyst — Barclays

Brilliant. Thank you.

Jonathon Rigby, Head of Investor Relations

Thanks, Lydia. We're now going to move to Irene Hermona at Bernstein. Irene, if you're there.

Irene Hermona, Analyst — Bernstein

Okay, yes. Good afternoon. Congratulations on a strong year, especially in the upstream. Can you please say, firstly, what did you change exactly to high-grade production? What does that involve? Secondly, can you remind us what upstream tax rate we should expect in an environment of $65 to $70 brands? And then, finally, very quickly, looking at the 10 billion real-year resource you have discovered since 2014, can you say roughly what the state is between gas and liquids, please? Thank you.

Speaker 13

On the what we did, basically, question of the high grading. of course in our portfolio we are bringing on stream project with very high profitable cash flow per barrel and we are divesting late-life late-life assets so the combination of these two elements so the the new project and the late-life asset disposal is is I grading our portfolio and you have you You may also see that if we compare the free cash flow per barrel from 2024 to 2025, we have seen a 10% increase on the tax rate.

Claudio Descalzi, CEO

Before talking about the tax rate, you remarked a very successful increase in our production. Absolutely what we have said is true. so we have a different quality in terms of borrow so higher cash flow per borrow but also we have been successful in the last years to be in terms of time to market time to market and budget so we have been able to not only respect our schedule but be in most of the case faster so that clearly impacted positively the production impacted an iterator return of all our projects and we are respected on all the budgets. So that is something that maybe is not clear or explicit to everybody, to investors, to all our community, but that is one key point of success in terms of result and the value of our volume.

Francesco Gattei, CFO

Tax rate? on the tax rate as you have seen there is a fluctuation that are mainly related to clearly to the composition in this case you mentioned the upstream tax rate so on the composition in terms of of production and contribution different counties on the exploration of write-off and some additional or one-off factor that could imply or determine certain effects in the 2026 the expectation is to with a 62 dollar that is for the time being our assumption a tax rate that should be in the range of 45 to 50 percent clearly if the price will improve there will be a lower tax rate just to complete you you made another question the

Speaker 8

split between oil and gas of the discovery is 70 gas and 30 oil thank you very much thanks irene uh we are now going to move over to josh stone at ubs josh yeah thanks hi john and good afternoon everyone uh two questions please one i wanted to pick on this up on this italian energy reform that got passed and whether you had a chance to estimate the initial impacts because it looks like there's it's quite complicated lots of moving parts it's connected to gas spreads vts and tax um maybe you could just talk about how you're thinking about that is it being a net positive or net negative and the different different impacts on your different parts of the businesses that would be useful thanks and then second question on on the buyback i know we've got to be patient for the actual number but i was hoping you can maybe share just your thought process here and the importance you put on buybacks after the re-rating of your stock and am i right in saying when you set this buyback you'll be using the 62 dollar oil price deck for for 2026 thanks about the energy bill that you were referring in italy clearly the impact is are slightly negative but quite marginal because you have to consider that as E&I we are not just a supplier and a producer but we are also an important industrial player in the country

Francesco Gattei, CFO

with different activities spanning from the refinery, chemicals, biorefineries and also certain upstream activity clearly. So you have to consider that the overall effect is mitigated by this double exposure. So it's absolutely, let's say, marginal towards the overall performance of E&I. In terms of buyback, I was mentioned before, the reference is $62 for the expectation for the next year. In terms of pricing, we have to confirm on the next Capital Market Day. Clearly, you know what is the structure of our distribution policy. When we set up a buyback, that is clearly the variable component of our distribution. This is a floor, and historically we proved that this is a floor because we raised the floor three times on four years and the scope is substantially to share the upside that will emerge both in the performance and the scenario to our investors. We will provide all the details in the capital market day at the end of March.

Jonathon Rigby, Head of Investor Relations

Okay, thank you. Thanks, Josh. So now we are looking for Al Saim. Al at Citigroup. Oh, Al has disappeared off the list. Apologies. We're going to move to Matt Lofting at J.P. Morgan.

Matt Lofting, Analyst — J.P. Morgan

Thanks. Hi, everybody, and congratulations on the strength of execution throughout 2025. Just two quick questions from my side. First, coming back to the net debt and gearing targets, I wondered, you mentioned Asia and the JV earlier. I wondered whether there was any other accounting effects in those targets, including any allowance for a possible deconsolidation of plenitude, which has been sort of talked about in the past. And then secondly, E&I is obviously one of the companies in the industry that's retained a presence in Venezuela. Do you have any thoughts at this point on the near and longer term upside that could sit there for you in the country and how you'd sort of think about ranking that within the range of portfolio opportunities that you have from a capital allocation and risk reward perspective? thank you so uh francesco uh look after gearing and i'm look after when it's okay uh clearly about the gearing target that we we provide you is uh is a let's say yes an effect of a number of action and levers as we said before there is a strong operational performance

Francesco Gattei, CFO

cash flow improvement capex efficiency and clearly the satellite model that helps to transform this potential contribution in terms of growth in stand alone companies or entities that will be able by themselves to provide the debt we are studying different solutions you were referring to Plenitude but clearly we are working on different concepts and potentially this could be but it's something that will be eventually disclosed at the proper time.

Claudio Descalzi, CEO

What I can say is that for sure is an upside for us, an upside from several points of view, not just one, two, maybe three different kind of upside. The first one, through the general licenses, number 50, that has been issued a few days before, one week, I think, we can recover our gas. So Venezuela can pay through using crude the gas that we deliver to the domestic market. So that is already a big upside before we were stuck for almost one year. That creates a build-up of our outstanding. So now that is done. Then there is a second upside. We have blocks, we have oil. We are in one of the best blocks in the Orinoco belt. We are also offshore with CoroCoro. And that possible additional development I can use to recover the past coast or the past outstanding, that's around 3 billion. And that is another upside. So for sure we are working with some American companies to see if we are creating a joint venture to develop this field producing, but clearly they can grow our production quite quickly, and that is a possible upside. And the third upside is Gaza. Gaza is something that is needed. You have to consider that the U.S. have to increase or deliver an additional 20 billion, or more 20 billion in one year, less than one year because with the sanction on the energy gas, Russian gas, we need to compensate this 20 billion, so they have to increase, but you need also gas in the domestic market. So the gas that we discovered, about 20 TCF in Perla, with additional prospect that are really located in the right position, not just to deliver domestic gas, but also to export to Europe is a third opportunity. These are in line with what President Trump wants. I mean, develop the oil and gas in Venezuela for Venezuela first, but also to create a different kind of environment in the region. So I see that very positively.

Jonathon Rigby, Head of Investor Relations

Thank you, Matt. Thanks, Matt. So we move to Martin Ratz at Morgan Stanley.

Martin Ratz, Analyst — Morgan Stanley

Yeah, to be honest, my questions have largely been asked, but I've got one left. There have been a couple of articles saying that you're interested in sort of revitalizing some of the oil trading business within E&I and including some partnerships with some other firms. I was wondering if you could provide some color around that issue, what your thoughts are in that area.

Speaker 13

We've started a journey to improve our trading and extract more value from this segment of the business. And first of all, we've created one single organization, so we have put under one umbrella all the trading arms of the company all along the value chain to extract all the margins. That's the number one. Number two, we have changed also some of our approaches to the risk. We are becoming a little bit less risk adverse. And number three, we are, of course, looking at different ways to do business. And in doing that, of course, we have started a dialogue with some international trading players in the recent months.

Jonathon Rigby, Head of Investor Relations

Thanks, Martin. We are going to move to Massimo Bonisoli at Equitar. Massimo.

Massimo Bonisoli, Analyst — Equitar

Good afternoon. Thank you for taking my two questions. One on CAPEX. Net M&A was around 4 billion in 2025, roughly 2 billion above the initial guidance, with 2 billion target also for 2026. Does this implicitly rise your opportunities over the four-year plan? So I'm curious to understand if you have more options in your portfolio than one year ago. And the second question on biofuels. How do you see biofuels trading environment evolving in 2026, particularly in terms of margins and market balance between supply and demand? Thank you. Yes, thank you, Massimo.

Francesco Gattei, CFO

About the net cappers and the portfolio factor, as you can see, we continue to upgrade our portfolio to leverage on our capability to execute and to explore and to have success for the dual exploration model, to valorize, as we have done so far, the business line that will be recognized as valuable through the transition. So there is a large list of opportunities. As I remember last year, we declared there was a risked amount, and the result at the end in terms of value and the higher effect is the fact that clearly we had a positive result at the end. So on terms of this year, effects of 2 billion, you can also already appreciate that we completed in early January the first disposal. It was the ivory cost top-up, and this is something that is already on our, let's say, results, and we are moving to additional progress or activity related in particular. You know, Indonesia 10% is a program that is ongoing and some other additional element. We continue to work, and you should expect, as we had last year, eventually upside us because we generally risk our overall portfolio program.

Speaker 2

Yeah, on biofuel, thanks for the question, Massimo. On biofuel, we see the development is absolutely constructive. We estimate biofuel demand in 2026 above 20 million. This year it's going to be around 16 million, so a significant step up. It's going to be driven mainly by Europe and U.S. The main reason for this demand growth is twofold. In Europe is the well-known Renewable Energy Directive number three. We quoted the Germany example even in previous call. I just want to add that on top of getting extra GHG reduction target and the ban of double counting, they are even asking to allow site investigation in foreign countries that are providing flows to Germany in order to be that flow accountable. And this is actually a positive involvement for the supply-demand balance. So this is another good news. Talking about U.S., actually just yesterday, the EPA said that within the end of March, they want to finalize the new renewable volume target. Expectation is to have a significant increase between 35% and 40% increase. We are seeing this already on the RIN prices. RIN prices improved by 40% from the beginning of the year, and this happened without an improvement in terms of RIN generation. So this means that in order to cope with the new EPA target, we need to have regeneration improvement, and this is going to drive economic margins improvement itself. Last comment, this year we saw a reduction at destocking of the ring banking. It's about half a billion destocking, and this is a turning point that reverts the trends that we saw previous year when the ring banking actually got exactly in the opposite direction with an increase of 2 billion. We expect this trend to definitely move forward and to rebalance the supply demands overall.

Jonathon Rigby, Head of Investor Relations

Clio, thank you. Thanks, Stefano. Thanks, Massimo. We're going to move now to Mark Wilson at Jefferies. Mark, if you're online.

Mark Wilson, Analyst — Jefferies

Okay, thank you. Good afternoon. You said earlier how the strategic path that's got you where you are in upstream is not one that you can start overnight. The exploration, the infrastructure, as you say, you've never stopped. Now, you also spoke to AI impacting exploration. And on the last call, you spoke to the technical hedge that floating LNG is giving you. But my question is that it's impossible to have this kind of delivery alone. So I'd like to ask which third-party areas, other than the ones already spoken to, across your upstream partners or indeed oil field service contractors, where's the greatest improvement been to assist your delivery? Is it drilling, reservoir characteristic, E&C cycle time, shipyards? Is it something else? That would be my question.

Claudio Descalzi, CEO

Thank you for the question. It's very interesting. No, first of all, we are never alone in the life. I have a lot of colleagues with me in Eni, but we are not alone in terms of strategy. When other companies outsourcing, that means that we kept in our company all the main competencies. That started in the 2000, and so 2000 now, and 2000, 2011, 2012, we decided to insource. So we didn't follow the mainstream that say reduced cost and may your contractor say main contractor, they do everything in Turkey. No, we want to take our end in each project. And that means that in the last, I think, 16, 17 years, we put our competencies and we increase our competencies in all the different segments of our business. I talk about A&P, not only. We increase the R&D investment. We open up seven R&D centers. We increased our R&D people at 1.2 thousand people and we have in our end technology in drilling reservoir all seismic and development and we made a revolution in our time to market. We are the best we can say in time to market. So we are not alone but we are alone in terms of the choices we made in the last 15 years. So I think that that is the main reason. I don't know if we share this point, we want to say something else. I hope. It couldn't be better said.

Mark Wilson, Analyst — Jefferies

I think it was very well said.

Jonathon Rigby, Head of Investor Relations

Thank you very much. I'll hand it over. Thank you, Mark. We're going to move to Paul Redmond at BNP Paribas.

Paul Redmond, Analyst — BNP Paribas

Hi, guys. Thank you very much for your time. Just two, please. first was you achieved 4 billion euros of cash initiative benefit in 2025 I want to ask how much of that is role or could roll over into 2026 and secondly I know people have asked but kind of and it is early so you've got capital markets then a few weeks time but I wanted to ask about how you think about allocating to shareholder you currently allocate based on a sense of cash flow from operations but you've clearly paid above that percentage and i think part of that has been driven by acceleration of divestments so i wanted and this year you're going to 2 billion euros of divestment so i wanted to ask if you still believe that percentage of cash flow from operations

Francesco Gattei, CFO

is the appropriate way to allocate cash flow to shareholders thank you first of all about the cash initiative you've seen that we executed i think that there is a A lot of evidence through the result that we achieved that we started with 2 billion, we raised it to 3 and then 4 billion, and we performed. Most of that are one-off factor. That doesn't mean that they will be reverted, but actually will be rolling. So we are executing our cash management in a different way than before, optimizing the time to market of these cash needs. And there were a lot of opportunities. We continue to study because I believe that generally in managing a huge amount of cash in a company as E&I, there is still a lot of pockets or upside that have to be discovered. It is a sort of treasury search that we look for. So we do expect something also, but this is probably we have to wait a bit, three weeks, for additional disclosure. So on the cash flow from operation reference, the idea of having cash flow from operation as a starting point for distribution is because we want to put the shareholders at the top of our priorities. So the first line of cash flow is the cash flow from operation, pre-working capital. And clearly there is all the other factors that come later. So the free cash flow could be another way to distribute. Clearly you have to change the percentage because you are speaking about different absolute figures. But at the end of the day, the logic of having cash flow from operation is giving the reference in terms of priority versus the distribution line. We will see, again, also in the next Capital Market Day, what will be the announcement and what will be eventually the percentage that we allocate.

Jonathon Rigby, Head of Investor Relations

Thank you, Paul. Thanks, Paul. And we're going to go to the last question. We found Alistair. Al, are you around? Al at Citigroup. I'm here. Thanks, John. Thanks for coming back.

Alistair Bishop, Analyst — Citigroup

So the question I have was really on, well, I mean, there's been a lot of commentary in Italy and across the European Union about the European carbon scheme, the ETS. And you have a flood in several camps here. You're a carbon emitter. You're a power generator. You've got a CCS business. So can you give us a sense of where you think the political discussion is and what, if any, changes you would like to see? And if I could poke in a second question, do you have any updates on the well you're drilling offshore Libya?

Speaker 13

Libya offshore, we are currently drilling one exploration well and we'll announce results when they become available, of course.

Claudio Descalzi, CEO

I think that we are very ready to talk about drilling reservoir explorations and all we But on ATS, honestly, we cannot give you a lot of light. It's a tax we pay. I don't know. Honestly, there is a big debate today because in Europe, the industry is suffering a lot. It's not growing. In the contrary, they are squeezing the industry in Europe with all the different kinds of taxes and green deals that impacted negatively all the kind of industry. ETS is one of these taxes, and Europe is the only country that applies these taxes at a very high level. So when we talk about competition with the rest of the war, it's not easy to compete when the other are not really applying the same kind of rules. So that's what I can say, but I don't want to enter any political debate. It's not our business. I prefer to increase production and get good results for my company instead of to cry about taxes I'm paying. Thank you.

Alistair Bishop, Analyst — Citigroup

Claudio, can I ask, does it make you think differently about putting capital in the CCS business, given that there is a potential that the legislation could change?

Claudio Descalzi, CEO

I think that change has been made already. There has been taxonomy and there has been accepted. At least at the moment, in Ireland, especially in the UK, and now in Italy, so we have at least three countries where the CCS can be developed. In the UK, they made a big, I think, effort for the future, and for that reason, now the investment started and also the project has been sanctioned. in Holland I think that is going to follow and Italy we are very close to have a new low but we have a huge amount of potential to be exploited and we constitute the company we already got interest from investors and we are already an investor with us in the company so I'm positive and Europe after years now they accepted this important tool to reduce CO2 emissions and clearly the CCS is the counterpart of the ETS because the CC so the capture now is not mentioned yet but now with the ETS that is close to 90 or between 80 and 90 euro per ton I think that the CCS based on the existing assets it's not a new development, is very good from an economic point of view. It's very positive.

Jonathon Rigby, Head of Investor Relations

Thank you. Thanks, Al. That brings us to the end of the call. Thank you very much for your attention both today and through 2025, and we look forward to speaking to you all in greater detail on the new strategy and plan, or the strategy and the new plan, on the 19th of March. So we'll see you all then. Thank you very much.