Eni Trades Its Way Back Into the Game

Eni and Mercuria signed a 50-50 Geneva-based venture on July 1 to trade oil, gas, LNG, biofuels, and LPG worldwide, pending approval

21 Jul 2026

Eni is getting back into trading, and it's bringing a heavyweight partner along for the ride.

The Italian energy giant and Mercuria Energy Group signed an agreement on July 1 to launch a 50-50 joint venture spanning oil, natural gas, LNG, biofuels, and LPG. Headquartered in Geneva, the new entity will run independently through a holding structure with international trading hubs. For Eni, it marks a return to a business it walked away from in 2019, just as rivals were cashing in.

That timing stings a little. Chief executive Claudio Descalzi told the Financial Times earlier this year that he'd been watching BP, Shell, and TotalEnergies rake in outsized trading profits, and it clearly got under his skin enough to act. Now Eni gets a second shot, this time with Mercuria's trading machinery doing the heavy lifting.

Each side brings something the other lacks. Mercuria supplies deep risk management know-how and a trading network that spans the globe. Eni supplies the physical backbone: upstream, midstream, and downstream assets that most trading houses can only dream of controlling directly. Neither company could easily replicate what the other brings to the table.

Marco Dunand, Mercuria's chief executive, called it a partnership between "two highly complementary organisations with a shared long-term vision for energy markets." Eni's Stefano Pujatti framed the goal in blunter terms: expand the trading footprint, boost profitability for both sides, and do it with real risk discipline behind the scenes.

A bigger pattern is at work here, too. Producers and traders keep finding reasons to merge physical supply chains with commercial trading muscle. ADNOC's tie-up with OMV and Mercuria did it. So did the TotalEnergies-Bapco venture in refined products. Eni and Mercuria are the latest to bet that owning both ends of the chain beats renting one of them.

None of it is final yet. The deal still needs regulatory clearance before it can move from paperwork to practice, and no firm launch date has been confirmed. If it clears that hurdle, though, Geneva could end up hosting one of the more consequential trading operations in the sector, right as the industry's biggest players keep circling the same prize.