Ongoing disruption in Libya and Nigeria will leave Eni’s annual oil output lower than 2012, the Italian firm has admitted.
Eni had previously expected its output to be around the same levels as last year, but crises in the African countries has seen third quarter production down 3.8% – around 50,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day.
New field start-ups and production increases elsewhere are not set to fully mitigate the losses.
The news comes as Libyan output dropped to less than 10% of its capacity – around 90,000 boed – due to the latest round of production shutdowns, which are among the most severe since the civil war broke out in 2011.
Oil exports have been suspended from the key Zawiya and Mellitah ports, with protesters reportedly shunning talks aimed at ending three months of disruption.
Eni saw third quarter profits fall 29.4% for the last three months, to $1.6billion dollars, and said it expected gas sales for the year to be lower than 2012.
However, the firm said it was going ahead with a proposed share buyback, and pointed to recent finds in Africa and Australia, along with the first oil from the giant Kashagan field in Kazakhstan as positives for the quarter.
“These operating successes strengthen our profitability outlook against the backdrop of a quarter that has not only been affected by difficult market conditions in the European markets of mid and downstream, but also by the extraordinary reductions of production in Nigeria and Libya,” said chief executive Paolo Scaroni.
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