February 18, 2026 [Reuters]- Italian energy major Eni is weighing re-entering oil and gas trading as it seeks the outsized returns enjoyed by BP, Shell and TotalEnergies, amid geopolitically-driven price volatility, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday.
“I stopped trading in 2019 but the other big companies are all traders,” Eni Chief Executive Claudio Descalzi told FT. “BP, Shell, Total are big traders and they make billions from that.”
Descalzi said he has held preliminary talks with several commodity companies, including Mercuria, about forming a joint venture.
“It is not in our DNA. We are not very commercial. So I thought to become commercial, we have to have a partnership to understand the business,” he said.
Descalzi added that the trading unit would operate independently of Eni.
Bloomberg News reported in January that Eni was in talks with Mercuria over a potential partnership in commodity trading.
Vitol, the world’s largest commodity trading house in terms of oil volumes sold, struck a deal with Eni in 2025 to acquire stakes in the Italian company’s West African oil and gas assets.
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