ENI is primarily working to discover new oil and gas reserves at a time when fossil fuel expansion has been ruled out in the name of a survivable climate. With profits of USD 9.7 billion in 2021, ENI is actively contributing to climate breakdown and amassing a fortune in the process.
Banks and other financial institutions must demand that ENI immediately halts all activities that expand fossil fuel infrastructure, and develop and implement credible phase-out plans for their existing fossil-fuel-based activities, on a timescale aligned with Paris Agreement goals. In the absence of such commitments, banks must stop servicing ENI.
| Sectors | Oil and Gas Extraction |
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| Ownership |
listed on Borsa Italiana & NYSE
ENI's relevant shareholders are the Italian Ministry of Economy and Finance, and CDP SpA. The company's complete shareholder structure can be accessed here. |
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| Website | http://www.eni.com |
ENI (Ente Nazionale Idrocarburi) is an Italian multinational oil and gas supermajor. Founded in 1953, Italy’s Ministry of Economy and Finance now has “de facto control” of ENI with 30.6% of shares. The company prospects for oil and gas, supplies and sells electricity and gas to end consumers and operates refineries and petrol stations. ENI has six divisions: exploration, the company's main division; natural gas & LNG; refining and marketing; renewables; renewables and retail; and chemicals, which is operated via the ENI subsidiary Versalis. In 2021, ENI had 31,888 employees operating in 69 countries. According to the Carbon Disclosure Project, ENI was responsible for 0.44% of global industrial greenhouse gas emissions between 1988 and 2018. ENI also has close ties with the authoritarian Egyptian government, which has been consistently accused of human rights violations.
ENI has close ties to the authoritarian government in Egypt, which has been accused of human rights violations such as politically-motivated arrests and the use of "morality" charges to detain women. In 2016, ENI's Chief Exploration Officer Luca Bertelli stated that ENI has "a historical, long-term, win-win relationship with Egypt". The Italian government, which has de facto control of ENI, works with the government in Cairo on issues of migration and security.
Egypt will host the upcoming COP27 conference, which has been described by human rights advocates as a "carceral climate summit", reinforcing the overlapping environmental and social impacts of ENI's continued collaboration with the Egyptian government.
The accelerating warming of Earth has long been a consequence of ENI’s operations: According to the Carbon Majors Report 2017, ENI accounted for 0.6% of the world’s entire industrial greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions between 1988 and 2015, or 5.32 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent. Following research conducted by the Climate Accountability Institute in 2020, ENI ranked 12th for GHG emissions between 1965 and 2018 among fossil fuel companies with assets, operations, production, or sales in the United States. These findings make ENI one of the world’s biggest contributors to global heating and therefore climate change.
ENI has no intention to stop emitting greenhouse gases any time soon. During a 2022 industry event in the UAE, ENI’s CEO Claudio Descalzi referred to decarbonisation as an “ideology” and underlined the importance of carbon capture technology; the company’s Road to 2050 net-zero plan relies on ENI being able to capture and store approximately 50 million tonnes of CO2 emissions annually by 2050. Such technology does not yet exist: In September 2022, the International Energy Agency reported that CO2 capture technology is in its infancy, with just two small-scale plants in operation that store captured carbon underground. By relying on unproven solutions, ENI’s net-zero plans risk exacerbating climate change for decades to come.
Qatar's oil and gas fields Eni signed an agreement with QatarEnergy to increase the extraction of gas from Qatar's North Field, the biggest non-associated gas field in the world and one of the world's largest carbon bombs. Eni is a shareholder in North Field East. If all the reserves of Qatar's oil and gas fields are burned this will lead to an additional 50 gigatonnes of CO2 emissions. These emissions will lead to USD 20 trillion in economic damage and 11 million people dying prematurely. These deaths will most likely take place in poor, marginalised and/or Indigenous communities who bear very little responsibility for causing the climate crisis.
In 2022 four banks (UniCredit, Intesa Sanpaolo, Crédit Agricole and Santander) financed ENI via lending and underwriting totalling USD 4.72 billion. See below for more details.
Between 2016 and 2021, 21 commercial banks financed ENI via lending and underwriting totalling USD 34.2 billion. See below for more details on banks involved.
The NGOs Greenpeace Italy and ReCommon, together with 12 private citizens, have sued energy company ENI, together with public shareholders Italian Ministry for Economy and state-owned Cassa Depositi Prestiti S.p.A, for their civil liability for contributing to climate change. The plaintiffs ask for ENI to reduce its emissions of 45% by 2030 compared with 2020 levels or to pay reparations. The company has promptly responded, denying all accusations.
Italian gas and oil supermajor ENI has been picked to join ExxonMobil, TotalEnergies, Shell and Conoco in expanding the world’s largest LNG project, North Field in Qatar. The expansion is set to cost USD 30 billion.
A court in Milan has found ENI and Shell to be innocent of corruption charges related to the purchase of an offshore oil block in 2011. Prosecutors claimed that the USD 1.3 billion cost was primarily used to bribe Nigerian elites, in a trial that has lasted for more than three years.
