MOSCOW (MRC) -- Italian oil and gas group Eni said on Wednesday it would reduce its capital expenditure this year by around EUR2 billion (USD2.17 billion) to mitigate the impact from falling commodity prices following the coronavirus emergency, reported Reuters.
Planned capex will be cut by around EUR2.5-3.0 billion next year, it added.
"We are taking these actions in order to defend our robust balance sheet and the dividend while maintaining the highest standards of safety at work," Eni CEO Claudio Descalzi said in a statement.
Eni expects 2020 output of between 1.8 and 1.84 million barrels of oil equivalent per day and the same for next year.
As MRC informed earlier, Italian energy group Eni said last week all its refineries in Italy were working normally except for two which had partially cut their volumes for maintenance work.
Besides, operations at Italian petrochemical producer Versalis (part of Eni) have not affected by emergency quarantine measures in the country. Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte extended its emergency coronavirus measures Wednesday evening and announced the closure of "non-essential" commercial businesses. This follows the announcement of a nationwide lockdown on Monday, limiting movement for around 60 million people. Under these measures people will only be allowed to leave their homes for work or health reasons. Versalis has three steam crackers in Italy, capable of producing 1.675 million mt of ethylene, 750,000 of propylene and 285,000 mt of butadiene a year.
Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP).
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 215,390 tonnes in the first month of 2020, up by 23% year on year. Shipments of all grades of high density polyethylene (HDPE) and linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) increased due to higher capacity utilisation at ZapSibNeftekhim. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 127,240 tonnes in January 2020, up by 33% year on year. ZapSibNeftekhim's homopolymer PP accounted for the main increase in shipments.
MRC