Eni won't make more money from green energy than oil & gas until 2040

Oil and gas will continue to be the most profitable business unit of Italian energy giant Eni over its renewable energy operations until 2040, says its chief operating officer.

Speaking at the BloombergNEF summit in London on Wednesday, Guido Brusco said that Eni is planning to double its renewables capacity in the next four years from 4GW to 8GW and hit 60GW by 2050.

Asked whether Eni will make more money from fossil fuels or renewables in a decade, Brusco said it will still be the former. Renewables will become its most profitable business around 2040, he added.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned last year that rapid, drastic action is needed to cut emissions to avoid catastrophic, irreversible global warming.

The effects of global warming are already being felt through extreme weather events that are becoming more frequent and intense. Florida in the US has faced two hurricanes in the last month, including a Category 5 storm that hit yesterday, which President Joe Biden has warned could be the worst in more than a century.

But Brusco warned of the danger of underinvesting in oil and gas, pointing to the recent energy crisis in Europe sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The scarcity of Russian gas caused countries to increase consumption of coal, which is more polluting, said Brusco.

Eni has therefore set a strategy that will see it grow both its oil and gas business and its renewables business, he said.

Brusco appeared to obliquely dismiss the suggestion that oil and gas revenues could help fund renewables investments, saying that the “beauty” of Eni’s strategy is that all its units are self-funded, with none acting to the “detriment” of another.

Brusco said that gas will be an increasingly important part of Eni’s fossil fuels segment, accounting for 60% of hydrocarbon production in 2030 and over 90% in 2050.