Eni and Mercuria form joint venture to trade energy commodities

Fifty percent of the new entity will belong to Eni, with the remainder held by the Swiss trading house Mercuria. The joint venture, operating on a standalone basis, is designed to trade oil, gas, liquefied natural gas, and biofuels. The decision follows a period of extreme price movement in global energy markets, where Eni’s competitors have reported earnings that highlight the structural value of high-capacity trading desks.

Six months of trading at Shell, BP, and TotalEnergies yielded as much as $4.75 billion in the first quarter of this year alone. While those firms maintain internal desks as core profit centers, Eni has largely remained on the sidelines of active trading since 2019. The partnership with Mercuria represents a strategic pivot to re-enter this high-stakes environment without building a global commercial operation from scratch. For Mercuria, the arrangement secures a direct link to Eni’s physical production data, a critical asset in a market driven by supply-side information.

Energy prices have been characterized by persistent dislocation following the conflict in the Middle East and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. These conditions typically favor independent traders and integrated majors who can leverage physical infrastructure to arbitrage price differences across geographies. The new venture is positioned to capture these margins at a time when traditional supply chains remain under geopolitical pressure.