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By Stephen Jewkes and Simon Webb
LONDON, June 22 (Reuters) - Eni may consider
spinning off its biorefinery business and coupling it with
retail operations as it is doing with its renewable assets, the
Italian energy group's Chief Executive Claudio Descalzi told
Reuters on Tuesday.
"It's really premature but it is a possible interesting deal
for the future," Descalzi said in an interview at the Reuters
Events Global Energy Transition conference.
Several European energy companies, such as Spanish
multi-energy company Repsol, are looking to divest
parts of their green businesses to raise money to reduce debt
and pay for the shift away from oil and gas.
"Biorefineries with retail... that could be a very good
business," Descalzi said. Eni has two biorefineries in Italy and
has said it wants to build more at home and abroad.
Eni, which in February unveiled some of the most ambitious
climate targets in the industry, is looking to restructure its
business and portfolio to help fund the energy transition.
In May it signed an agreement with BP to merge
upstream operations in Angola to form one of Africa’s largest
energy companies in a move that will allow the new group to
borrow without increasing Eni's debt ratios.
Descalzi said Eni was open to partnerships with other
companies similar to the BP deal, adding discussions were
ongoing but without providing further details.
"We want to segregate this kind of investment and make a
single entity with some other company that has the same kind of
model in mind," he said.
Asked about natural gas as a transitional fuel, Descalzi
said he was convinced it would have a key role to play going
forward.
"We have to replace coal first then oil... It's still a
very, very important fuel," he said.
Eni, which is developing two bumper gas discoveries in
Mozambique and Egypt, has said its oil production will peak in
2025 to be increasingly replaced, in its upstream portfolio, by
gas.
In May ,the International Energy Agency said investors
should not fund new oil, gas and coal supply projects if the
world wants to reach net zero emissions by mid-century.
(Reporting by Stephen Jewkes and Simon Webb, writing by
Agnieszka Flak, Editing by Marguerita Choy)
