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Operator
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Eni's 2026 third quarter results conference call hosted by Mr. Francesco Gattei, Chief Transition and Financial Officer. (Operator Instructions) I'm now handing you over to your host to begin today's conference. Thank you.
Francesco Gattei - Chief Financial Officer
Good afternoon, and welcome to Eni Q3 conference call. In this quarter, Eni has shown once again that the strategy is working and delivering outstanding results. We are driving distinctive real asset-driven organic growth in both the upstream expanding into new geographies with major projects and in our new businesses linked to the energy transition.
At the same time, we are generating strong cash flow and bringing our debt down to its lowest level ever. As we grow, we want all our shareholders to share in the upside. That is why we combine our industrial strategy with a progressive distribution policy that has also reached a record level. Before describing our additional distribution, let me highlight the key milestone of this quarter and of 2026.
Starting with upstream, where production growth is already sector leading, propelled by our differentiated industrial organic technology-led capabilities. We have already had a standout year for exploration even when set against a decade-long track record of success with discovered resources of more than 1.2 billion barrels. Our technical rate of success is 80%, and our commercial rate is 70%, really remarkable. But remarkable still is that this has been achieved with a discovery cost of below $1 per barrel.
Strong execution of our strategy has enabled us to raise our full year underlying production guidance to 6%, 7%. The growth primarily comes from Congo, Libya, Cote dâIvoire, Mexico, Ghana and from the business combination in Indonesia, Malaysia called Searah and comes despite the complex operating environment in the Middle East and constraint on Kazakh's export.
And we are locking in future production growth with key FID this year of Baleine Phase III in Cote d'Ivoire, Kutei North and Gendalo and Gandang in Indonesia, Cronos in Cyprus and Greater PAJ in Angola, Nor is volume growth our single target. We are guided by value. Hence, through our dual exploration valorization in Cote d'Ivoire and Indonesia, we have raised around $2 billion of accelerated value.
On top of that, we are working up an unprecedented level of access to discovered resources, employing our technology and fast track development skills to mature opportunities in Venezuela and Argentina. Our two listed satellite are also adding new resources with Var Energi and Ithaca recently announcing acquisition, expanding their geographical footprint and deepening the resource base in Denmark and Canada, respectively. A proof point in the delivery of value is that both companies recently reached record market capitalization with an equity stake value for Eni now at around EUR10.5 billion, almost doubling the original level.
Our gas and LNG strategy is delivering tangible value already. New LNG supply contracts signed in Indonesia and Cyprus for a total of up to 3.4 million tons per year strengthen the path towards our target of more than 20 million tons per year of LNG equity production by 2030 and support the increase of our 2026 full year pro forma EBIT guidance to around EUR1.5 billion.
As to the CCUS business, this year, we completed the installation of the new Douglas CCS platform in Liverpool Bay, the world's first purpose-built offshore platform dedicated to industrial scale CO2 Transportation and Storage. We have also progressed the development of the Ravenna Phase 2 project, securing further support through the award of European Commission's Innovation Fund. It is worth looking at this in the context of our expanding and increasingly balanced global footprint.
Exploration success has come in West Africa, Egypt and Indonesia. It is a mix of infrastructure led in known plays and higher impact discoveries, but all representing considerable value. We have built and strengthened four major growth hubs across the Far East, the Americas, Africa and the Mediterranean, giving us a deep and diversified resource base.
Project sanctioned in full year 2026 will deliver around 600,000 barrels per day of new production at 2030, underscoring the scale and quality of our development pipeline. And this is a continuously evolving portfolio. New agreements and additional opportunities have been identified or implemented in 2026, contributing around 4.6 billion barrels of oil equivalent of additional equity resource.
Let me also take a moment to update in a bit more detail on our progress in Venezuela, where we appreciate things have been moving very quickly. In early September, we signed a new contractual regime that will govern the Junin 5 field for the next 25 years. We have already submitted the development plan to the Venezuelan authorities.
Upon approval, we intend to quickly move forward to FID on Phase 1, which will add 200,000 barrels gross in 24 months. This could be before the end of this year. Further phases could then take full field production to a gross level of 1 million barrel per day.
Also, earlier this year, we signed a sustainability agreement on Perla, giving Eni control of export and revenues from which we will pay our royalty and taxes while resuming payment for our gas. In addition, the agreement allows for some debottlenecking of production for the domestic market while also defining a new expansion phase for future LNG export, roughly doubling production. It's important to emphasize our objective is to manage our free cash flow position over both Junin and Perla, carefully managing the net capital. Phase development and timely farm downs to manage the risk reward are a fundamental feature of Eni's upstream strategy, as you know.
Before going into more detail on our performance for the quarter, let's also cover transition. Providing further important balance to our company, we continue to capture value from our transition activities where Enilive has reported record results this quarter coming out of a year when we expect to have significant new biorefining capacity and bring in by year-end benefits of our recent purchase of the marketing assets in Germany.
At the end of the quarter, we have also completed the additional investment in Plenitude with Ares taking a larger share. This new structure will efficiently support the next phase of growth for Plenitude. In fact, emphasizing our value creation, we now have market valuation implying a value of these 2 largest company in the transition business at a combined EUR25 billion.
Our satellite strategy is a key tool to our success in building new transition businesses without sacrificing investment into E&P. Turning now to Q3 results. This fully reflects our objective to grow Eni while simultaneously reducing risk and doubling the optionality that comes with a low geared balance sheet and delivering an attractive return to our shareholders.
E&P reported production growth of 4.2%, combined with a supportive market environment and the focus on efficient operation, we generated pro forma EBIT of EUR4.6 billion. GGP pro forma EBIT of EUR0.4 billion came without onetime benefits seen in Q2 2026 and was driven by strong gas and LNG optimization results. There were no one-off contract adjustment in the quarter. In transition, Enilive and Plenitude together reported pro forma EBIT of EUR0.7 billion, corresponding to EUR0.6 billion of pro forma EBIT with Enilive benefiting from supporting biorefining margins, while Plenitude results were impacted by the current competitive environment in the retail space.
Transformation saw refinery report a further recovery in utilization as the major turnaround activity was completed, meaning we were provided important supply to customers and we were able to capture the strong market conditions. Versalis suffered from a reversal in the scenario from Q2, but the underlying performance remained on track towards its target of breakeven in 2028.
Contribution from associates reflect a full quarter of Searah, the business combination in the Far East, while our share of the ADNOC refinery returned to profitability. The group tax rate of 32% reflects a tax rate of 35% in E&P, helped by high grading of production, a higher proportion of results in lower tax regimes and the effect of the satellites. Plus also the improved contribution from Enilive and refining. We now expect a full year charge of between 36% and 37%.
Net income of EUR2.8 billion was up 20% quarter-on-quarter despite lower oil price and up 2.2 times year-on-year. CFFO before working capital effect was EUR4.3 billion, broadly in line with Q2 despite lower crude oil prices and 30% up year-on-year. Capital expenditure of EUR1.35 billion is consistent with the EUR7 billion we have guided to and consistent with our comments to expect a lower figure in the second half with the consolidation of Plenitude and the upstream activity in Indonesia.
The impact of the strong cash flow from operation generation, our disciplined net investment and the consolidation of Plenitude debt equivalent to EUR2.75 billion improved our balance sheet with reported gearing now at 10%, the bottom end of the guided 10%, 15% range, while pro forma gearing is at 9%, both levels representing a record minimum. The continued improvement in our balance sheet metrics is also confirmed by a recent upgrade by Standard & Poor on our credit rating and its initiation of an investment-grade rating on Plenitude.
For the full year 2026, we now see cash flow from operation at EUR16.5 billion, 43% above our initial guidance. This underpins our shareholder returns and covers the dividend, our first priority by more than 5x. Our historically strong balance sheet position and excellent cash flow from operation allow us to confirm the raise in our share buyback and the announcement of a special dividend.
Today, we are raising our 2026 share buyback to EUR3.8 billion from EUR3.4 billion, 2.5 times above the original guidance. And additionally, we can confirm we are declaring an exceptional dividend of EUR1.3 billion with ex-dividend date on the 7th of December, bringing our total cash dividend this year to EUR4.4 billion, the highest level in our history. This represents a total payout of EUR8.2 billion or 50% of cash flow from operation, equivalent to a yield on our share price of more than 11%.
With this, I conclude my remarks on what I think you will agree was another excellent quarter, consistent with our view shared at Q2 that Eni is one of the strongest position in its history. Together now with my colleagues from Eni management team, I'm happy to take your questions.
Operator
(Operator Instructions)
I now leave the floor to Mr. John Rigby for the Q&A session.
Jon Rigby - Head of Investor Relations and Strategic Analysis
We're going to move to the first question in the queue, and that's Alejandro Vigil at Santander. So Alex, if you'd like to ask your question?
Alejandro Vigil - Analyst
Congratulations for these results. Probably two questions that are related also potentially with the Capital Markets Day in '27. But basically, looking at the strong underlying growth in the upstream business, my question is what's the level of CapEx you need to maintain this profile in the coming years? If the EUR7 billion is enough or you have to look at this number?
And the second question is about Venezuela. I'm very interested on the Junin 5 and the Perla project. If you can give us an indication on the total CapEx needed to reach those levels of production, although you also highlighted the possibility of farm-out, but just if you can give us some numbers.
Francesco Gattei - Chief Financial Officer
Okay. I will answer to the CapEx. Clearly, it's a bit early now to discuss about Capital Market Day because we are working, we are starting to work in the coming weeks on the plan that we are going to present next year.
But sure, what you could expect is that the model that we have built and has proved -- has the potential to make you grow in different direction, different businesses and geographies without compromising the amount of investment, actually maximizing the opportunity and therefore, the speed of this transformation and growth while keeping a steady level of CapEx. So we could continue to expect something that is in the range of what we have seen this year and also last year. About the Venezuela, I leave now to Brusco.
Guido Brusco - General Manager, Chief Operating Officer - Global Natural Resources
On Venezuela, as you know, we will -- it's a phased project, first of all, and then we will leverage on facilities with spare capacity. Of course, over time, we will have to build new facilities as the production volumes will increase. So I would say it's still -- we are still in an assessing phase to understand the level of capital. But for sure, at the very beginning, will be low intensity utilizing spare capacity, which is in the country available.
Jon Rigby - Head of Investor Relations and Strategic Analysis
Michele Della Vigna, Goldman Sachs. Michele.
Michele Della Vigna - Analyst
And congratulations on the very strong results. I wanted to ask two questions. First, on tanker rates for crude, we've seen a crazy increase over 20 times the normalized level. Could you give us an idea of how much of your crude transport needs are covered by long-term agreements versus spot rates? It's never really mattered that much before, but it is very important, especially as we start to model the fourth quarter realizations.
And then secondly, you've achieved very low tax rates in the last two quarters. You're guiding 36%, 37% for this year. Is that also what we should use for modeling next year or perhaps with a more normalized refining environment, let's say, maybe something closer to 40%, 45% would be more appropriate.
Francesco Gattei - Chief Financial Officer
Okay. I'll leave to Stefano Pujatti, Head of Trading, the answer about the tankers rate, and then we'll come back to the tax rate.
Stefano Poyatti - Head of Trading
Yes. So in terms of shipping strategy, I would say 60% roughly of the shipping that we do is under long-term agreements. So this is providing us a mitigation on the current very high prices that we are seeing on the market from one side. And from the other is giving us a certainty of being able to deliver the volumes. The remaining 40% is more, let's say, on the spot market. But let's say, more than half of those, we are able through the sales through selling contracts actually to pass through those costs to the buyer.
Francesco Gattei - Chief Financial Officer
About the tax rate, clearly, the tax rate evolution is related to two factors. One is the level of pricing, clearly, the contribution of the different segments of different upstream geographies on one case, but also from the point of view of the different business, R&M on one side or Gas and Power on another side and Enilive are supporting on helping to reduce the tax rate.
The other part that is more structural and not related to the price is the fact that the business combination reduced the tax rate. So you receive just practically the net result from this company, and therefore, you don't have any rate applied to that result. For this reason, you should expect clearly a range that is much lower than the historical level that we had in the past in a normalized price environment. Clearly, the price remains where it is now, this is also helping to keep it even lower.
Jon Rigby - Head of Investor Relations and Strategic Analysis
Alessandro Pozzi, Mediobanca.
Alessandro Pozzi - Analyst
I have two questions. The first one is going back to Venezuela. You talked about a phased approach. You talked about the initial phase of 200,000 barrels a day, increasing to potentially 1 million, which is quite significant. And I believe is that just for Junin 5? That's what I understood. And I was wondering, can you give us a bit of maybe the timing within which you aim to get there? And also, I think Junin is in the Orinoco Belt and historically it's been heavy oil. You need a lot of diluents to extract the oil. I was wondering about any technical challenges that you may face there basically.
And on the second question is on Argentina. I believe there is an FID targeted around year-end. Can you give us an update about the regulatory approvals that you need, the RIGI framework and financing as well? And then can you clarify what will be the accounting for Argentina upstream and LNG?
Francesco Gattei - Chief Financial Officer
I'll leave the both answer to Guido.
Guido Brusco - General Manager, Chief Operating Officer - Global Natural Resources
Okay. I'm just finishing too. So starting from Venezuela, a bit of a timing. On the Phase 1, which would reach the 200,000 barrels of oil per day, we expect between 18 and 24 months. Then we have another intermediate level, which is 400, which we will achieve by end of 2029. And then the 1 million is the potential, which we will achieve in mid, let's say, 2032, 2033. You have to consider that this is a super giant with 35 billion barrel of oil in place.
So the potential is there. Clearly, we have to build, as you have appreciated, the right logistics, the right supply chain. And this will take some time, of course. But from a subsurface standpoint, the rocks, we know the rocks, we know the reservoir. You spotted the right point. We need a lot of diluents, but we also have synergies with our assets in Venezuela. We have condensate from Perla, and we are -- we expect to double the production of condensate in Perla with the future export of LNG. And so this could be used as a diluent for the heavy oil of Junin 5.
Equally, we have another asset, Corocoro, on which we have also a plan to increase production. It's light oil or lighter than the oil of Junin 5. And this also could be used as a diluent. So the amount required is large, but we have also some synergies we can leverage in country to overcome that.
Going to Argentina, there are a few things required for the FID. From a technical point of view, commercial point of view and also supply chain, contractors have been identified. So that part of the work is done. RIGI, we have just submitted the application, and we expect to get it approved before, of course, the FID. The government and the stakeholders are very supportive.
And RIGI have been designed for this kind of project. So RIGI is all about mega project like this one. The financing, of course, we made market sounding. We've tested the market. There is a very strong appetite. Our target is to achieve a 65% to 70% financing for this project. On the accounting, I would leave.
Francesco Gattei - Chief Financial Officer
I will complement that. On the accounting, both the upstream and the midstream activities will be consolidated because we'll be structured around special purpose vehicle that has also Guido said, will attract the specific financing tools.
Alessandro Pozzi - Analyst
That includes the LNG, the midstream part?
Guido Brusco - General Manager, Chief Operating Officer - Global Natural Resources
Correct. Yes.
Jon Rigby - Head of Investor Relations and Strategic Analysis
We're now going to move to Lydia Rainforth at Barclays. Lydia?
Lydia Rainforth - Analyst
A quick one. Just on Venezuela, I want to come back to, I think it was slide 5 where you talked about 600,000 barrels a day of new production in 2030 alone as been sanctioned in 2026. Can I just check, does that include Venezuela or not just that one hasn't been sanctioned yet.
So I just want to check on that one. And then just when you look at that idea of 2026, materially changing the portfolio and adding as much resource as you have, can you just give us a sense of the scale of that change in terms of -- how do you feel that this has been a year where actually Eni has been a step change in the resource additions?
Francesco Gattei - Chief Financial Officer
I think Guido is the right person.
Guido Brusco - General Manager, Chief Operating Officer - Global Natural Resources
I mean, those -- in the 600, Venezuela is not included to give you a straight answer. 2026 was clearly a very strategic and turning point for us. We've continued our phenomenal exploration success, but we also, with the strategic agreement in Venezuela. In Argentina, we've accessed very large resources in Vaca Muerta and of course, in Junin 5.
And the EUR4.6 billion of BOE reflects that access. Of course, the lion's share is done by Argentina and Venezuela. But I mean, if you could have appreciated also in the slides, we have created 4 major hubs engine of growth. It's not only Americas, it's also Indonesia with the two FID and the third hub coming with Geliga, but it's also Africa and Mediterranean with Cronos in the Mediterranean, with the discovery of Denise in Egypt with Baleine Phase 3 with Greater PAJ in Angola, with the ramp-up of Congo LNG, Coral North in Mozambique. So it is Venezuela and Argentina, but not only that.
Jon Rigby - Head of Investor Relations and Strategic Analysis
We're going to move now to Joshua Stone to UBS. Josh?
Joshua Stone - Analyst
One question on the balance sheet. It is quite striking your gearing now being below 10% on a pro forma basis. So wondering how you're thinking about that Francesco looking into 2027. If the current upturn continues, would you consider going net cash potentially? Or is the idea to just keep giving excess cash back to shareholders? I'm just curious your thoughts there.
And then second question on chemicals. Everything seems going better than expected, but except for Versalis where it seems to be losing more money than it was at least on the 9 months versus last year, if I include the transformation costs. So I understand the macro has been very difficult for petrochemicals. But is there anything else you think that can be done to help stop the losses here?
Francesco Gattei - Chief Financial Officer
Thank you, Joshua, for the question about gearing. Clearly, we have a model that allow us to grow and distribute, as we said, at a record level, but also to manage different cycles in the oil prices and the commodity prices. So what is the real advantage of what we built is a sort of ship that is able to navigate different seas.
And clearly, in a period as the one that we have seen in this 2026, there is, let's say, an amount of cash that was originally not included, but that we considered in any case, and I would say we were quite able to anticipate a potential scenario to share this upside to the shareholder.
On the other side, to use this upside for our balance sheet. 2027, clearly, we have to see how the crisis is evolving in the coming months. It will take time to recover a normalized price environment. But what is more important is that for us, the opportunity is to use at the best the financial potential that we have inside the company. It's not only gearing of any is the reference, but also are the different financial potential that is inside the different combination of the different entities that we built.
So do we expect to reach net debt positive cash is not in our assumption, but it's something that could happen in the case of scenario. The distribution policy, I think it is something that we are going to discuss with the Board for -- with the plan under our eyes with the Board next year. But clearly, it's something that will follow the same logic. If there is an upside related to our capability to capture and to execute better than expected, we like to share the upside.
And now I leave to Adriano for the Versalis answer.
Adriano Alfani - Chief Executive Officer - Versalis
Thanks, Josh, for the question. I think we need to make a distinction between what is the trajectory and what was the second quarter of 2026 that was a special quarter, let me say, special from the founding part of Hormouz. When we look, as you ask, compared to the same quarter of 2025, the EBIT pro forma is slightly better, I would say, in line is slightly better than the third quarter of 2025.
As a result of a scenario that remain extremely weak from a demand point of view, but that is significantly worse from a utilities point of view. And you know that the chemical sector is very energy intensive and also from negative impact of import duties that starting from the July 1, 2026, have been eliminated completely versus the US. And of course, this is putting Europe even in a weaker position from a competitiveness point of view.
So what we have done and what we are doing is moving on with our transformation plan that on a quarterly basis represent almost EUR90 million, but unfortunately, this is offset completely by utilities and by the negative scenario. What else we can do? I mean, you need to consider that, as we always discuss that Europe does not have the strong demand of Asia.
And Europe does not have the competitiveness in terms of feedstock and energy that the Middle East and the US have. So Europe has to play with competencies and innovation to transform. And this is what we are doing, and this is what we are going to share more also in the next Capital Market Day on how we are going to accelerate our transformation.
Jon Rigby - Head of Investor Relations and Strategic Analysis
Paul Redman, BNP Paribas.
Paul Redman - Analyst
My first question was just on refining margins. If I look at your macro assumptions for 2026, I think you're implying about $25 per barrel SERM margin for 4Q. So I wanted to ask what you've seen so far in October on SERM margins and whether that includes shipping costs as was discussed at the beginning of the call. And then secondly, as part of your Eni for Italy commitments, you put in fuel caps. I wanted to ask what the quarterly impact on earnings and cash flow could be from those.
Francesco Gattei - Chief Financial Officer
Okay. I'll leave to -- yes, if you want to answer Pino Ricci, and then we will answer about the cap.
Giuseppe Ricci - Chief Operating Officer Industrial Transformation
Yes. Thank you for the question about the refining margin. Of course, the adjusted margin -- standard margin that we use include the freight cost that increased a lot during the last period because of the Hormuz situation include also the different yields that of course changing the crude, changing completed the slate of crude.
Paul Redman - Analyst
Apologies for interrupting. I was just going to ask and what is the SERM today?
Francesco Gattei - Chief Financial Officer
The SERM today, I tell you which is the figure is 22 million and the quarter-to-date is 18. About the cap that you mentioned, clearly, it's worthwhile to mention that for us, doing business means managing a strategy to pursue sustainable and long-term value. So we have -- we believe that companies have a social responsibility. We cannot be a company that is, let's say, living in a sort of bubble outside the real world.
So we would like -- we have to be realistic and thinking that supporting customer is a priority for a company that is working on a basic needs as energy. For this reason, we have decided to introduce a cap to our sales of gasoline and diesel. This is a cap that will be, let's say, assessed periodically. And we, in terms of impact, we estimate that under the current market condition, assuming the level that we have seen so far, the impact in a quarter will be in the range of a few hundred million. So this is the logic of what we have been and the magnitude of the impact.
Jon Rigby - Head of Investor Relations and Strategic Analysis
Henry Tarr, Berenberg.
Henry Tarr - Analyst
Could we focus on Enilive and another very strong quarter in Q3. What's the outlook for that business into Q4 and then into 2027? It seems as though policy in Europe remains very supportive. Do you see that continuing to be the case even if we continue with very high prices to consumers? Or do you think security of supply sort of trumps the cost issue?
Francesco Gattei - Chief Financial Officer
Yes. I leave to Stefano Ballista, the CEO of Enilive.
Stefano Ballista - Chief Executive Officer, Enilive
Yes. The market scenario is very constructive. The key point is mainly driven by fundamentals. Fundamentals means in Europe, the Renewable Energy Directive that has been deployed already in 17 countries, and we got draft from other 7 countries that are going to do it just after. So this demand is going to stay there. In US, rationale is the same.
On top of EPA new target we discussed in previous quarter, we got extra clarity on clean fuel production credit during this quarter that are going to increase clearly and reduce market uncertainty. On top, we got reallocation of small refinery exemption to all rest of demand. So keeping the scenario very supportive.
Moving forward, we see the situation remaining. And the current geopolitics context actually is going to give the biofuel an extra contribution on top of the sustainability, environmental sustainability in terms of security of supply because value chain on biofuel are decoupled from the oil one. So they can be used with the same distribution network and with the same engine. So this is an extra value that we see on biofuel enforcing current strong fundamentals.
Henry Tarr - Analyst
And if I could just have a quick follow-up. Are you exporting volumes to the US today?
Stefano Poyatti - Head of Trading
Today, we are not exporting volume to US because the optimal outlet is Europe, given the arbs. We got the volume from US to Europe up to, let's say, a couple of months ago due to open arbs. Now given the change of the economics in US, that it's at a very high level, the optimal solution is to keep that volume in US
Jon Rigby - Head of Investor Relations and Strategic Analysis
Massimo Bonisoli, Equita.
Massimo Bonisoli - Analyst
One question on Plenitude. You lowered the EBITDA guidance to EUR1.2 billion from EUR1.3 billion, citing increasing competitive pressure in retail and weaker condition in renewable. Could you elaborate on which factors are driving the downgrade and whether you expect these headwinds to persist into 2027?
Francesco Gattei - Chief Financial Officer
About, yes, Plenitude, the market environment, in particular, retail was particularly challenging because there are a number of players that are entering the market with aggressive policies. So they are trying to open to build their customer bases and therefore, they are, let's say, defining aggressive marketing activities. We are actually working and reacting, as you have seen also recently with the policy, with the new announcement that we have done, and we see improvement in return of, let's say, quite a number of new entry in our customer basis that was also enlarged by Acea Energia acquisition that we completed this year.
There is another factor that is impacting our performance this year that was a one-off. It was related to the fact that during the summer, there was a spike in terms of demand of power demand that has practically pushed well above any expectation on the request of our customer. And therefore, we had to buy on a spot basis at energy. So this is something that we return positively clearly related to the weather or to the climate conditions.
Clearly, we have to continue to adapt our retail marketing activity to take into account of this new environment that is characterizing mainly Italian market. We do expect clearly an improvement. There also to consider that with the new injection of capital, Plenitude has probably one of the strongest position in terms of financial power of the player of the sectors. We need to use this money in the best way.
Jon Rigby - Head of Investor Relations and Strategic Analysis
Chris Kuplent, Bank of America.
Christopher Kuplent - Analyst
In the same vein, if I may ask you, Francesco, maybe you can give us an overall estimate for the impact about all these price caps that you've press released in the last few weeks, whether it's on fuels, whether it's on power, et cetera. In whatever shape or form, you can give us a little bit of an idea what the financial impact is on that?
And then I was just going to follow up and ask you whether you can give us more insight into the timing of dividends from your affiliates so we can get a better handle for what is in your Q4 budget, what you're expecting there? Because it seems like Q3 was a rather handsome receipt in terms of dividend payments to the mothership.
Francesco Gattei - Chief Financial Officer
About the price cap, we have already said that assuming the current level of cap and assuming the current forward curve, we are speaking about a few hundred millions in a quarter. So that is related to the fuel, while for the marketing positioning of Plenitude is just some millions for this year and a bit more for the next year, but it's not, is not changing the overall number that I mentioned before. In the fourth quarter, the key contributor for the distribution policy will be Searah. That is material. And there is also some contribution coming from Var Energi and I think also from Azule.
Jon Rigby - Head of Investor Relations and Strategic Analysis
Getting to the end of the list. We have Al Syme at Citigroup. Al, are you still with us?
Alastair Syme - Analyst
Maybe this is a question for Stefano. I was looking at the Enilive sales data and somewhat surprised to see quite strong growth, particularly in Italy. I think you're talking about retail sales up 11% year-on-year. Maybe just some perspective on that. Are we looking at same-store sales data? I mean we're kind of in the midst of an energy crisis, unusual to see double-digit growth numbers.
Francesco Gattei - Chief Financial Officer
Yes, I'll leave to Stefano.
Stefano Ballista - Chief Executive Officer, Enilive
Yes. No, thanks for the question. Well, the growth is driven by retail -- retail demand. This is clearly related to our pricing strategy as well. So this is part of the focus on customers, so part of the social responsibility that Francesco just highlighted. On top, actually, we got a very focused, let's say, before the price cap pricing approach in order to optimize value, including also non-oil contribution, so as a whole.
Other side of this approach is in order to optimize portfolio, we reduced our wholesale exposure exactly to maximize the value, so reducing exposure on the lowest margin segment on the wholesale given the current portfolio and given the ongoing market dynamics in terms of flat price plus premium.
Alastair Syme - Analyst
So just to be clear, Stefano, what we're seeing is some sort of market share gain then on the retail side. Is that the way to interpret it?
Stefano Poyatti - Head of Trading
Yes, definitely. Sorry, yes, absolutely. There is a significant market share gain, yes. It's exactly the implication -- this number related to us, not to the global market. Global market is pretty much in line. In Italy, there's not been any significant swing compared to the expectation. This is an extra volume we are capturing, thanks to the overall strategy we have in place.
Jon Rigby - Head of Investor Relations and Strategic Analysis
Sasi, Jefferies.
Unidentified Participant
Yes, I had one left on Venezuela regarding Perla. I was just wondering if it was possible to provide a time line for the development of the export facility there as well. Recent press reports have indicated that an initial partner could be brought into the project. I was wondering if you can comment on those discussions, if you're marketing it currently and clarify whether a farm-down is necessary to take an FID on the export project there?
Guido Brusco - General Manager, Chief Operating Officer - Global Natural Resources
Yes. On Perla, we have submitted the plan of development, which foresee two steps. One is a debottlenecking of the current onshore plant to provide additional 90 million standard cubic feet per day to the domestic market.
And then the second phase is the exported through a floating LNG of about 3.4 million, 3.5 million tonnes per annum. We have stated already that this -- once we will take the FID, it will take 3.5 years give and take to bring this volume on production. And the FID, of course, is subject to the approval of the plan of development from the first party from the government. The technical work, the good news is that the technical work has been done and also the supply chain has been somehow identified.
Jon Rigby - Head of Investor Relations and Strategic Analysis
With that, we're going to close the call. So thank you very much for your interest. Any other questions, don't hesitate to reach out to the Investor Relations team, and have a great weekend. So thank you very much.
Francesco Gattei - Chief Financial Officer
Thank you.