Italian energy firm Eni is expecting to double its contracted liquefied natural gas volumes by 2026, while the company’s LNG sales dropped by 14 percent last year.
Eni’s adjusted net profit rose to 13.3 billion euros ($14 billion) in 2022, a rise of 207 percent compared to the year before.
The company’s global gas and LNG portfolio earned 2.1 billion of Ebit, “replacing Russian flows with equity gas or supplies from countries where we operate, and ensuring optimization of the gas and LNG portfolio in a tight market,” Eni said.
Eni expects Ebit for its global gas and LNG portfolio to be between 1.7–2.2 billion euros in 2023.
Moreover, Eni is “securing gas supplies for its customers via a more diversified, flexible and integrated portfolio, and it expects to grow contracted LNG to over 18 MTPA by 2026, double that of 2022,” it said.
LNG sales drop
Eni’s LNG sales dropped 14 percent in 2022 to 9.4 bcm of LNG. This compares to 10.9 bcm of LNG in 2021.
The company also reported a drop of 14 percent in its fourth-quarter LNG sales to 2.4 bcm.
Total natural gas sales of 15.55 bcm decreased by 18 percent in the fourth quarter compared to the same period of 2021, due to the lower gas volumes marketed in Italy, particularly in the spot market and the industrial segments, Eni said.
In 2022, natural gas sales amounted to 60.52 bcm, down 14 percent compared to 2021, impacted by lower supply from Russia and Nigeria, it said.
Growing LNG business
Eni has been quite busy with its LNG business during the last two years.
This includes shipping the 500th cargo from the Damietta LNG plant in Egypt and also the first cargo of LNG from its 3.4 mtpa Coral Sul FLNG located offshore Mozambique, as well as joining the giant Qatari LNG expansion.
Besides this, Eni is moving forward with its FLNG plans in Congo and it awarded a contract to China’s Wison Heavy Industry to build a 2.5 mtpa floating LNG producer.
In August last year, Eni signed a deal to buy Exmar’s Tango FLNG and expects this unit to start production in 2023.
The floating LNG producer, delivered in 2017 by Wison, has a storage capacity of 16,100 cbm as well as a liquefaction capacity of up to 0.6 million tons per year.
With the second FLNG, overall LNG production capacity on Marine XII will reach 3 million tons per year or over 4.5 billion cubic meters per year in 2025, Eni said.