Eni SpA (ENI), Italy’s biggest oil company, said profit slumped 14 percent in the fourth quarter due to production halts in Libya and Nigeria.
Adjusted net income declined to 1.3 billion euros ($1.77 billion), Eni said in a statement on Thursday. That’s higher than the 1.21 billion euro mean estimate of 17 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. Oil and gas production fell 9.7 percent.
“Eni achieved solid results in a particularly difficult market,” chief executive officer, Paolo Scaroni, said in a stock exchange statement.
Eni, the biggest foreign oil producer in Libya, has been struggling with reduced output all year as power struggles between regions led to strikes and other disruptions.
Production increases in Algeria and Egypt partly offset the negative impact of halts elsewhere, Eni said.
Eni said on Thursday it had discovered the equivalent of about 2.5 billion barrels of oil and gas off the coast of the Republic of Congo.
