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Italian oil giant posts profit rise

Italy's oil and gas giant Eni achieved a 2.5-percent rise in net profit in the third quarter, it said on Thursday despite a drop in production and falling oil prices.

Published: 30 October 2014 12:51 CET

Italian oil giant posts profit rise

Italy's oil and gas giant Eni achieved a rise in net profit in the third quarter despite a drop in production and falling oil prices. Photo: Luca Mascaro

Thanks to a lower tax rate, the company's three-month profits after adjustment for special factors were €1.17 billion ($1.47 billion), beating analysts expectation of €860 million.

Operating profit on a 12-month comparison dropped 11.8 percent to €3.03 billion, hit by a slump in oil prices on the back of weaker global demand, Eni said in a statement.

"I am confident that our strategy and the results it will produce are the best way to ensure profitability and financial robustness for Eni in an environment of declining prices," chief executive Claudio Descalzi said.

The Italian company forecast its 2014 hydrocarbon output would be substantially in line with production last year, while gas sales may dip slightly.

Eni also said on Thursday it had made an "important discovery" in an area off the coast of Congo, which would produce up to 1.0 billion barrels of oil equivalent.

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NGOs take Norway to European Court over Arctic oil exploration

Northern Norway. Photo by Vidar Nordli-Mathisen on Unsplash.

It’s the latest turn in a legal tussle between environmental organisations Greenpeace and Young Friends of the Earth Norway on one side and the Norwegian state on the other.

The organisations are demanding the government cancel 10 oil exploration licenses in the Barents Sea awarded in 2016, arguing it was unconstitutional.

Referring to the Paris Agreement, which seeks to limit global warming to less than two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, the organisations claim that the oil licenses violated article 112 of Norway’s constitution, guaranteeing everyone the right to a healthy environment.”

The six activists, alongside Greenpeace Nordic and Young Friends of the Earth Norway, hope that the European Court of Human Rights will hear their case and find that Norway’s oil expansion is in breach of human rights,” Greenpeace said in a statement.

In December, Norway’s Supreme Court rejected the claim brought by the organisations, their third successive legal defeat.

READ MORE: Norway sees oil in its future despite IEA’s warnings

While most of the judges on the court agreed that article 112 could be invoked if the state failed to meet its climate and environmental obligations– they did not think it was applicable in this case.

The court also held that the granting of oil permits was not contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights, in part because they did not represent “a real and immediate risk” to life and physical integrity.

“The young activists and the environmental organisations argue that this judgment was flawed, as it discounted the significance of their environmental constitutional rights and did not take into account an accurate assessment of the consequences of climate change for the coming generations,” Greenpeace said.

On Friday, the Norwegian government unveiled a white paper on the country’s energy future, which still includes oil exploration despite a warning from the International Energy Agency (IEA).

The IEA recently warned that all future fossil fuel projects must be scrapped if the world is to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.

The Norwegian case is an example of a global trend in which climate activists are increasingly turning to courts to pursue their agenda.

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