Italy Energy Major Eni Q1 2014 Profits Slump
Eni confirmed a flat oil and gas production outlook for the year after a 14.3 percent fall in first-quarter profits as the Italian company's longstanding chief executive gets ready to bow out.
Adjusted net profit was 1.19 billion euros ($1.6 billion), impacted by a lower oil price and stronger dollar, state-controlled Eni said.
That was in line with the 1.2 billion euros expected on average by six analysts polled by Reuters.
"It's a neutral set of results, slightly below my forecast. The group has a new CEO now and it'll be interesting to see what he says later on," said Santander oil analyst Jason Kenney.
Earlier this month the Italian government designated Eni's exploration and production head Claudio Descalzi as CEO to take over from Paolo Scaroni in May.
Descalzi will need to balance safeguarding Italy's gas supply by nurturing relations with Russia while exploring new drilling frontiers in Africa and Asia.
Recent tensions over Russia's seizure of Crimea have revived fears over energy supplies across Europe. Eni is Gazprom's biggest European gas client.
Eni, the biggest foreign energy operator in Africa, confirmed it expected its hydrocarbon output for the year to be largely in line with 2013, stripping out the recent sale of its Arctic Russia gas assets.
Production has been hurt by instability in Libya and Nigeria.
Eni also said it expected gas sales for the year to be slightly lower than in 2013.
BP and Norway's Statoil (STO) both reported quarterly results above forecasts on Tuesday.
($1 = 0.7223 euros)
(By Stephen Jewkes; editing by Agnieszka Flak and Jason Neely)
