Credit Risk

Credit risk is the potential exposure of the Group to losses in case counterparties fail to perform or pay amounts due.

The Group manages differently credit risk depending on whether credit risk arises from exposure to financial counterparties or to customers relating to outstanding receivables. Individual business units are responsible for managing credit risk arising in the normal course of the business. The Group has established formal credit systems and processes to ensure that before trading with a new counterpart can start, its creditworthiness is assessed. Also credit litigation and receivable collection activities are assessed.

The monitoring activity of credit risk exposure is performed at the Group level according to set guidelines and measurement techniques that establish counterparty limits and systems to monitor exposure against limits and report regularly on those exposures. Specifically, credit risk exposure to multi-business clients and exposures higher than the limit set at euro 4 million are closely monitored.

Monitoring activities do not include retail clients and public administrations. The assessment methodology assigns a score to individual clients based on publicly available financial data and capital, profitability and liquidity ratios. Based on those scores, an internal credit rating is assigned to each counterparty who is accordingly allocated to its proper risk category. The Group risk categories are comparable to those prepared by the main rating agencies on the marketplace. The Group’s internal ratings are also benchmarked against ratings prepared by a specialized external source.

With regard to risk arising from financial counterparties, Eni has established guidelines prior to entering into cash management and derivative contracts to assess the counterparty’s financial soundness and rating in view of optimizing the risk profile of financial activities while pursuing operational targets. Maximum limits of risk exposure are set in terms of maximum amounts of credit exposures for categories of counterparties as defined by the Company’s Board of Directors taking into accounts the credit ratings provided by primary credit rating agencies on the marketplace.

Credit risk arising from financial counterparties is managed by the Group central finance departments, including Eni’s subsidiary Eni Trading & Shipping which specifically engages in commodity derivatives transactions. Those are the sole Group entities entitled to be party to financial transactions due to the Group centralized finance model. Eligible financial counterparties are closely monitored to check exposures against limits assigned to each counterparty on a daily basis. Exceptional market conditions have forced the Group to adopt contingency plans and under certain circumstances to suspend eligibility to be a Group financial counterparty.

Actions implemented also have been intended to limit concentrations of credit risk by maximising counterparty diversification and turnover. Counterparties have also been selected on more stringent criteria particularly in transactions on derivatives instruments and with maturity longer than a three-month period. Eni has not experienced material non-performance by any counterparty. As of December 31, 2009, Eni had no significant concentrations of credit risk.