Good morning to everybody. I would like to thank you for your attendance. I'm Francesco Gattei, I'm responsible for Investor Relations. Today, we will present Eni's integrated model for the development of sustainable energy. The presentation will be conducted by our Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Descalzi, together with the Chief Development, Operations & Technology Officer, Mr. Roberto Casula, and Executive Vice President for Energy Solutions, Mr. Luca Cosentino. I would like to thank you also our Chairwoman, Mrs. Emma Marcegaglia, who is sitting in the front line, together with two other board members, Mrs. Karina Litvack and Mr. Andrea Gemma, with some of our top managers. I would like also to thank Kepler Cheuvreux for the organization of this event. I leave it to Mr. Descalzi, the floor for the presentation.
Thank you, Francesco. Good morning, and thank you, everybody, to be here with us today. The main objective of this presentation, the today presentation, will give you an update on our Environmental, Social, and Governance models. Since last time we met, it was three years ago, I think a lot of things happened. In Eni and also in the world. We are here today to present you the update and adjustment we made in our model to face this new scenario. I'd like to start giving you some elements to define the context and the future challenges we are going to face. The key future challenge for the energy sector, that is our idea, is to achieve a balance between maximizing access to energy and fighting climate change. Today, two-thirds of our carbon budget, equivalent to 2.9 trillion tons of CO2, has already been used.
That means that we have at our disposal still one trillion of CO2 that is our treasury that we cannot consume. Over the coming decade, we have to consider that the world population will grow from seven to nine billion. Energy demand will increase by around 30%. There will be also a geographical shift in consumption. 70% of the energy demand will come from non-OECD countries, which represent around 85% of the world's population. A major priority is how to extend access to affordable energy. Today, there are 1.3 billion people with no access to electricity, half of them in sub-Saharan Africa. 2.7 billion people still using biomass for domestic cooking and heating.
However, if the global temperature increase is to stay below 2 degrees, we cannot give access to energy or satisfy the increasing energy demand with the current carbon-intensive energy mix. That is the main issue. The solution to this equation will provide the basis for the energy transition. Also, this process will take time, at least until there is a technological breakthrough. The challenge, therefore, is to change the energy mix, thinking in terms of priority, feasibility, long-term planning, and the world's carbon budget, as we said at the very beginning, that we have to consider to solve this equation. Even in this complex and volatile scenario, Eni's model looks toward long-term value creation for both company and stakeholders. Pay strict attention to the environment. Our model unites financial robustness with social and environmental sustainability through competencies and innovation, risk management, and compliance.
We made the decision to grow organically, to minimize risks and costs, and our upstream business is based on conventional portfolio. We avoided tar sand and very complex development, preferring to focus our effort on undiscovered conventional resources and, where possible, close to existing facilities. Exploration successes of 12 billion barrel oil equivalent discovered since 2008, have made us the sector's top performer and justify the choice we made to work on the conventional asset and grow up organically. Exploration is the fuel of our organic growth, allowing us to reach a breakeven level amongst the lowest in the industry, and is powerful in consolidating partnership with host countries. In the downstream sector, we are pursuing a turnaround plan which aims at enhancing efficiency and converting loss-making assets into sustainable green businesses.
To successfully execute these strategic guidelines, we have at our disposal a unique cooperation and development model with the host countries, an operating model that minimizes risk and social and environmental impact, and a clear and defined path to decarbonization. For this last point, decarbonization, in 2015, we constituted the Energy Solutions Department, which report directly to me. Now, let me talk to you about our integrated approach to risk management and compliance. These functions are now reporting directly to me, having become independent from business and staff activities. This results in a more effective and efficient organization, something that is more crucial in a context with growing uncertainty and risks. The head of these departments, that are today with us, are appointed by the CEO after consultation with our Chairwoman. They are the process owners of the activities under their autonomous responsibility.
They periodically report relevant matters to the Board and to the various control committees. Risk assessments they carry out with a quarterly review of the company risk profile, which covers all the business lines and 29 processes, encompassing more than 95% of the company performances in terms of cash flow, production, and CapEx. Our risk portfolio consists of about 150 risks, of which around 20 are classified as top risks. These top risks are grouped in strategic, external, and operational risks. Now, let me talk you through our focus on the long-term strategy to reach decarbonization targets. Before that, infographics. First of all, I want to say that we acknowledge all the challenges posed by climate change, energy poverty, and the need to limit the temperature increase. We address these seemingly conflicting issues.
We created an integrated energy transition strategy that is based on the following action plan. The first action is to lower CO2 emissions and enhance efficiency in all our operations. We have already reduced our direct CO2 emissions by 28%, equivalent to 16.8 million tons of CO2 since 2010. In the coming years, we will continue to grow in the core business, targeting zero routine flaring by 2025, and an overall 43% reduction of emissions per barrel produced. Secondly, we aim to preserve a low carbon profile and promote the use of natural gas as a bridge fuel for electricity generation, but also for transport. 50% of Eni existing project are gas, and upcoming developments in Mozambique, Egypt, and Indonesia confirm our commitment. Finally, we will spread the development of renewables in the countries where we operate, while stimulating technological research.
In the downstream, we have already launched this strategy, placing the production of green bio-products alongside our traditional business. We were the first to convert a traditional refinery into a biorefinery in Venice, and we are pursuing the transformation of the Gela refinery in Sicily into a green refinery. We have also launched a series of green chemical projects in Porto Torres, Sardinia, and Porto Marghera, Venice. Combining gas and renewables is the ideal bridge to a lower carbon future. It is the best solution to eliminate coal from power generation. Currently, coal accounts for around 41% of the electricity generation, but causes 73% of CO2 power emissions. If we can substitute coal with gas and renewables, we will be already on track to meet the carbon reduction target of 2-degree scenario. We believe in the effectiveness of the international climate partnership. Let me highlight our international engagement.
In 2014, we were among the founding members of the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative with other nine oil and gas companies to seek common solution on climate and promote technological development. On gas flaring, we have been part of the World Bank's Global Gas Flaring Reduction for more than 10 years, and we are committed to reach zero routine gas flaring in 2025, five years in advance of the GGFR commitment. We are member of the Climate and Clean Air Coalition for minimizing methane emissions. That's our decarbonization strategy. Now I would like to go deeper into the concept of stranded asset. A stranded asset can be a resource with a high breakeven price or a resource that is under substitution, and therefore with a decline in demand. We manage this situation in two ways.
First of all, our choice is to grow through conventional assets, which ensure lower breakeven. In recent years, while the industry was moving toward more expensive projects, we kept our projects' breakeven at $40. We have managed to reduce this to $27 following our huge near-field exploration discoveries and project optimization. Secondly, gas is very important to our portfolio, accounting for around 70% of our contingent reserves. Gas is the cleanest and most efficient of the fossil fuels, and this role in the energy mix is becoming increasingly important. If we add all these factors with our strong position in Africa in terms of reserves, the risk of stranded asset is greatly reduced. In fact, talking about Africa, 1.2 billion people live there, 16% of the world population who use only 5% of its energy.
The population will grow by 1 billion in the coming decades, almost doubling its energy demand. What's more, 50% of the African energy mix is still based on polluting biomass like wood and charcoal, which needs to be replaced with cleaner sources like gas and renewables. Africa needs to leverage its huge potential coming from more than 14,500 BCM of proven gas reserves, and the enormous possibility deriving from all the renewable sources it has. For this, Eni's asset in gas and renewables projects will become even more valuable. Finally, I can say that any scenario is more conservative than that of the International Energy Agency, the valuation of our projects is not impacted by the 450 ppm scenario . That is scenario to stay below 2-degree.
It is also worth highlighting that Eni applies a carbon pricing sensitivity of $40 per ton of CO2 in real terms, that implies a strong readiness in our project for emission optimization. Now let's focus on the first of our operating levers, our model of cooperation and development in host country. We can see this model in this short video. What I'd like to say firstly, that is our cooperation framework supports local development, seeks for minimizing socioeconomic gaps, and involves all stakeholders. When we started in Africa about 60 years ago, we were not a big company. We were surrounded by all the major players who were supported by historical relationship with African countries. For that, we needed to do something more than just investing for export.
We invested to capture domestic potential, to increase local development, and raise hosting countries' profit share by creating 50/50 incorporated joint ventures. That we did first time in Egypt in 1955. This initial weakness, the fact to be very small, surrounded by big guys, became our strength, our belief, and in the end, our culture. We understood that involving the host countries more and supporting their development was the only way to grow together and to be recognized. Essentially, the main step is to pass from being merely a shareholder to being also a stakeholder, so be part of the community. By doing this, we became local, anticipating and providing for domestic needs. Even today, this is how we work.
Our attention is focused on production for domestic market, not only export, access to electricity, diversification of the energy mix, not just oil and gas, that we have to create a community that can live also without it. Diversification of local economies, transfer of know-how and technology, local development in health and education. This cooperation model helped development and living conditions in the areas we operated. It also gave us the credibility that strengthened our ties with the countries. This has been crucial to our growth in Africa, where we produce around half of our equity production, and now we are the first operator in terms of production, number of countries, and reserves found. That means that the model can work. One of the main issues that, as we mentioned, we'd like to face and discuss now is access to energy.
The lack of access to energy is the main reason for social and economic gaps and for weak development, fragile health conditions, and safety issues. In Sub-Saharan Africa, around 600 million people live without access to electricity, and the average electricity consumption per capita is around 200 kilowatt hour, compared with an average of 2,000 for Asia, 5,000 for Europe, and more than 10,000 kilowatt hour for the U.S. For this reason, we decide from a strategic point of view to develop gas not just for export, that was the main trigger, what changed our position in Africa, but also for supply of local population, providing millions of people with access to energy. Since the '70s, when we start producing in Sub-Saharan Africa, we have shared electricity production coming from our plant with local communities. We have plants, we have flow stations, we produce electricity for our production.
We're always considering the project to have some more electricity to share free of charge with the surrounding communities. That creates what we said before, this double flag, to be part of the stakeholder, not just shareholder that take, develop, and export. Talking about access to energy, nowadays in the Mediterranean area, we provide almost the entire amount of gas necessary to supply Libyan power plant. We are the only company, IOC company, that decided to give most of the gas to the Libyan market, and we supply more than 5 BCM per year, covering all the power needs. In Egypt, where our entire gas production already stay in the country, we will help to create the conditions for energy independence thanks to the development of new giant discovery [inaudible] .
We are selling our gas production domestically in 14 countries for a total of 43 BCM per year. In particular, in 10 countries, we deliver our entire production for local consumptions. Moreover, in Africa, we have invested to diversify the energy mix, 50% of which is currently based on biomass and coal. Just to give you an idea, when I say biomass and coal, I talk about, as we said, wood and charcoal. Worldwide, the biomass used for domestic cooking and heating are producing more than 4.5 million deaths. We talk about women and children, because they are using domestically, they sleep, and that is one of the major issues. Just in 2013, in Africa, we had more than 400,000 deaths in 2013 because of the use of biomass. Biomass is not just polluting, but is a big issue for Africa.
In sub-Saharan Africa, we have invested in power generation using associated gas, which has traditionally been flared. Today we are the leading power producer among all the international oil companies. By doing this, we have managed to improve access to energy in areas where the energy supply was scarce and unreliable while reducing gas flaring. That was the first big step when we decided to flaring down and use this gas to create energy. That means that we invested a lot of money to do that. Eni has installed more than one gigawatt of electricity capacity in four plants in Nigeria and Congo and transmission infrastructure, we provide 20% and 60% of these countries respective electricity supply for investment of more than EUR 2 billion.
That was a clear choice because instead of export this gas, Eni be making more profits short term, we decide to reduce our profit short term and create more value long term for the country, but also for us. What we became Africa is also because we apply a view that is more focused on the long term. I know that analysts and investors are not happy about long term. They prefer the short term. If you want to invest in a company that is still alive in 10 years, we have to look at the long term. In total, in the sub-Saharan region, we have installed electricity plant to provide power to over 18 million people. This model will soon be replicated in Angola and Ghana, where we have already signed an agreement for the development of new projects, as well as in Mozambique.
In line with our projects to sustain low-carbon energy mix, we are investing in renewables to include various energy solutions that are customized to the needs of the countries, generating energy from renewable sources alongside existing oil and gas production by using facility already in place onto off-grid. This is a new model. I think that you saw the new press release of the agreement we signed in Algeria and Egypt. Now we are going to extend this view that will be presented later on by Luca Cosentino, that is in charge of the new Energy Solution Department. Our model that we call brownfield model because the aim is to replace the internal consumption of our activity that is huge because we consume about 3 gigawatts worldwide for our internal consumption. Our aim, and we use gas, we use oil, we produce CO2.
Our aim is to replace this consumption with photovoltaic and solar. Why we can do that? Because we are in this country, and we are in Africa. Africa is much richer in sun than in oil and gas, and they are not using at all. That project that can increase our renewable capacity, we started discussion with the countries a couple of years ago. We are going to do that. We start projects, sanctioned project this year. First project, first result 2017. We start in North Africa. Also on the other activity in Africa, Asia Pacific, and Italy. We presented already a summary of what is our Italian project. We are going also to do that in Italy. That is also another subject that will be discussed by Luca later on.
Energy, first problem, access of energy to aim at the development and to reduce the gap that exists between rich and poor people that are anything to survive and people that can stay a little bit better. This gap can be filled if they have energy. Outside the energy sector, we are actively engaged in promoting local projects, helping diversify countries' economy, and supporting agriculture program. The other big point is, we are an oil and gas company. Another point to look at the future and aim at the value is also to create alternatives. This country can really survive and live better if they have alternatives. Sometimes oil and gas create some desert of economies, of initiatives, of entrepreneurial initiatives. What we think is that we have to give energy.
The energy can give these people the possibility to develop other activity that are not just oil and gas. Now we talk about what we did in the last 20 years. That was another winning factor for our presence in Africa. Agriculture is one of the main point. Talking about what we invested. In the period 2010-2015, we have invested around EUR 600 million, supporting more than 4 million people through agricultural projects, access to water, healthcare, education. In the next 4 years, we expect to maintain more or less this kind of investment. Between 2010 and 2015, we involved 550,000 people in agricultural projects. An emblematic example of this economic diversification is the Green River project in Nigeria, which aims to develop agriculture and promote modern farming technique and new crops.
We started 27 years ago, selecting the most appropriate seed with the support of Lagos and University of Florence, training local people, and incentivizing microcredit. Over the years, this project has grown, creating now 500,000 new jobs. We started with a few families. We started with about 20, 30 people, and now really became a very sustainable project. We have to consider that is in the heart of Niger Delta, in the Delta State, where really we have the Niger Delta, and is between the land and the swamp area, so it's been not easy to perform, but these people didn't have anything, and now they have a job, and they are living what they are producing. They are not linked to the oil and gas, and it's a huge amount of people. Other key concern are access to water and education.
We carry out projects in 11 countries, providing supply of clean water to around 130,000 people. We are also involved in the provision of education facility for 90,000 students, mainly in Mozambique, Kazakhstan, Nigeria, and Congo. Finally, our sustainability projects focus on better healthcare, including prevention programs, training for medical personnel, and provision of medical supplies involve 1 million people. Now, as the last point, as the last leg of our model is sharing of know-how and expertise. That is essential because it encourages the development of local skills and streamlines the supply chain. In the last five years, we have increased the share of local employment by more than 21%, and on average, we reach a level of around 80% of local employees in our consolidated affiliates. In Egypt, Libya, and Nigeria, our historical countries, 92% of our employees in 2015 are local.
On the supply chain in 2015, we spent €13.5 billion on local procurement, a 20% growth in four years, working with more than 9,000 local contractors, which provide around 66% of our procurement. I conclude this first part, and now I give the floor to Roberto to present our operating model.
Thank you, Claudio. Thank you, Claudio, and good morning to everybody. The second lever is our operating model, which is characterized by continuous effort in minimizing risks along the whole production cycle. On this specific risk evaluation and management is carried out in all operations to support decision-making and efficiency. Focus on minimizing risks and safeguarding people and the environment is a must in our operating model, and one of the main targets of each phase of the production cycle. Safety and environment are at the top of our priorities, but let's watch now a video showing our performance. For the last three years, we have been the industry's top performer regarding the reduction of injury rates.
In 2015, the total recordable injury rate was 0.45, which is significantly lower than the peer average of 1.3, and testifies to our commitment to improving our safety performance where we target a level 0 of injuries. In terms of environmental protection, we are also improving all our performances and indices along with a growing commitment on conservation of natural resources. For flaring, we cut flare gas by three-quarters compared to 10 years ago, and we target zero routine flaring by 2025. We have halved upstream methane emissions since 2007, and we will further reduce them by up to 80% by 2025. Finally, we have raised the reinjected water rate from 40% to 56%, and we plan to reach 64% by the end of the decade.
All these results have been achieved thanks to our strict policies and procedures, which also cover related issues like conservation of biodiversity, attention to sensitive areas, and water stress. Let's move to exploration. Exploration is the first building block in growing reserves, and consequently our company's future and success, as well as being the strategic driver behind our low-cost organic growth. For this reason, we decided to strengthen our exploration organization and strategy. Indeed, our objective was to manage exploration activities with a more entrepreneurial spirit, more weight to competencies, fitting closer with the rest of our upstream strategy, which is pointed at optimizing time to market in developing our discoveries. To do this, we built a balanced exploration portfolio where we have a proper mix of near-field exploration opportunities and few high-risk, high-reward frontier initiatives.
The first provide us, in case of success, a fast time to market, taking greater advantage of already existing infrastructure. The second gave us the transformational discoveries and the volumes that will provide the base for reserve replacement and long-term production growth. In the last eight years, we have discovered, as Claudio said earlier, around 12 billion barrels of resources at a unit cost of $1.2 per barrel. This means we discover 2.4 times what we produce in the period, far above the peer average of 0.3. One such exploration success is Zohr in Egypt, the latest giant discovery, the fifth in the last five years, all of which are located in different basins and prove new plays. Out of 12 billion barrels of resources discovered so far, we have promoted around 8.5 billion barrels to 3P reserves. How did we get here?
Well, as I said earlier, in 2008, we made a strategic decision to change our approach in exploration and to develop internal competencies and proprietary technologies. These last eight years, we have spent more than EUR 200 million in geophysical and geological research to develop our proprietary technologies for seismic imaging and petroleum system modeling. This in order to better quantify the geological uncertainties, de-risk exploration, de-risk the asset life cycle. These technologies are based on complex algorithms and implemented on our high-performance hardware platform located in our green data center where we can call on 4.5 petaFLOPS of computing capacity. With this, we can process about 90% of the depth imaging projects in-house, saving on the cost of licenses. All of this is also instrumental in fast-tracking the transformation of discovered resources into reserves, we will come back to this later on.
Let's go now to how we turn exploration successes first into reserves and then into production. I mean our development activities. The transition from resources to reserves is the result of workflows, processes, organization that have been critically reviewed, in some cases in the light of lesson learned on the operated and non-operated project. Why? To mitigate the execution risk and improve the time to market and enhance the profitability of our projects. Indeed, we have left behind the usual sequential pattern of our activities, choosing instead to carry out most of these in parallel and with greater integration among the different disciplines. This has had two main results.
The first one was that we can perform reservoir modeling during exploration and appraisal phases. The second one is that the design of the surface facilities can be tailored to the way the information on the reservoir and the fluids is evolving. All of this contributes to reducing subsurface risks. The close integration from exploration to production startup activities means fast-tracking resources into reserves. Indeed, to mitigate risks associated to development activities, reduce cost, and enhance the time to market, we pursue a simpler, more effective, and manageable approach composed of the following elements. Firstly, a phased approach. This give us a better time to market of our project and accelerate ramp-up. Second is design to cost. This is where the project is optimized to reduce development cost whilst making sure the facilities are energy efficient and environmentally safe.
Third is the strict control on project execution, contractual strategies, design freezes, and maintaining high level of supervision by using our own people. Finally, a closer integration between commissioning and operations. This approach resulted in an average upstream cost of our new projects from $30 per barrel, the level in 2014, to around $20 per barrel now. Furthermore, another important element is a high level of operatorship, which will reach 90% in our startup in the next four years, putting us in a position to strictly control risks, cost, and time. Let me give you some examples of our integrated approach to exploration and development. Marine XII in Congo and Nooros in Egypt. Both Marine XII and Nooros come from our near-field exploration strategy. In Congo, we reached first oil just 11 months after discovery.
The huge potential of this play is now about 5.5 billion barrels of oil equivalent of resources. We expect further upside, reaching overall production of 150,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day at the end of this decade. In Egypt, the Nooros field has reached in only 13 months a production level of 128,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day. We expect to reach a production of almost 160,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day early next year. Let's now focus on our drilling activities, where we manage one of the most relevant technical risks of our business. Well, to give some numbers, over the last four years, we have drilled both in operated and non-operated activities, an average of 490 wells per year whose 15% is represented by critical wells.
Our drilling activities are managed through an advanced risk management model, which is based on three pillars: competencies, processes, and technologies. For each well to be drilled, we make a detailed analysis, and if the risk is too high, we simply decide not to drill the well. Let's start from competencies. The technical organization located in headquarters closely follows up the professional family worldwide and ensures that all our people are properly trained and have the right competencies. This is achieved through an intensive training program and a dedicated learning process on the job with the aim of maintaining the ownership of operations through the internal know-how. In 2015, only for the drilling activity, Eni invested more than EUR 5 million to provide over 100,000 training hours with about 1,800 attendances.
In terms of processes, all wells classified as critical, for example, high pressure, high temperature wells, are monitored by the headquarters' technical organization, which must give its endorsement to the well drilling design before activities start. During execution, we closely follow up critical well operations through our real-time drilling center, where the same information available at rig site are shared with the most qualified expert who provide full technical support to lead the operational decision wherever the wells are drilled. Finally, Eni is the leader in the development of technologies aimed at maximizing safety. All new technologies are developed internally, starting from the proof of concept to the engineering design and the application of patents. In the last years, the use of innovative technologies and the Eni approach have reduced the probability of incidents by an order of magnitude compared with the peers.
I mean, one event over 100,000 wells versus one event over 10,000 wells. We intend to reduce it by a further order of magnitude. Furthermore, we have developed a proprietary system named EWISE, Eni Well Incident Systematic Evaluation, certified by third-party, which allows to accurately estimate the probability of incidents and to select, during the engineering phase, the well design that minimize risks. During execution, it allow us to focus the attention on critical operations. At the same time, Eni has focused the research on the development of emergency response technologies, such as the dual ROV killing system, Rapid CUBE, which is a containment system. Both these technologies enable us to quickly restore well safety conditions in the remote case of an incident, reducing its potential consequences.
Now, a focus on our policy in order to preserve one of the most sensitive regions, the Arctic, where we are operating around 130,000 barrels oil equivalent per day. Our operations today are concentrated in three areas. Firstly, we produce from two fields in the North Slope in Alaska. We are exploring and producing in the Barents Sea, where we have recently started the Goliat field. According to our policy, drilling activities in the Arctic are carried out exclusively in the ice-free offshore areas. Satellite monitoring to detect the presence of icebergs, remote monitoring for all activities are in place. Site-specific procedures are applied to guarantee the conservation of fishing activities and biodiversity. Our operations take place only when there is a minimal effect on the marine habitat. In terms of activities, we apply all our drilling and containment technologies we have seen earlier.
Above all, we maximize the involvement of local populations, keeping them informed, safeguarding their activities, and making use of their skills for the management of emergencies. For example, the use of fishing vessel for the containment of any oil spills. In addition to the areas already mentioned, we also have a long-term interest in Northeast Greenland, where we are performing very preliminary environmental studies, and the Russian Barents. Once again, our driver is to carry out activities only in areas where we can operate and manage both routine and emergency situations through existing technology, and where we are expecting a break-even price in line with our portfolio. Now, I would leave the floor to Luca Cosentino, who will give you more details about the action we are pursuing on our path to decarbonization. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you, Roberto. Good morning, everybody. Let's start now with the path to decarbonization, let's start in particular with the role of gas in the transition process. The promotion of gas is key to our decarbonization strategy, which in turn is based on the ideal energy mix of the future. According to the IEA scenario, global energy demand in 2030 will increase by 21% with respect to the current level, reaching 16 gigatons. However, this growth would only involve minor changes in the energy mix. Coal will still play a major role, satisfying 20% of total demand, while modern renewable will contribute just 4%. As a consequence, this will cause a further increase of total GHG emissions from 32 gigatons in 2013 to 35 gigatons in 2030.
If we do not intervene to change the energy mix, we will not be able to reach the goals of meeting energy needs and safeguarding the environment. We all know that modern renewables, like solar and wind, have a very positive impact on the environment. Today, they still suffer from several limitations. Extended areas that are needed for installation. A wind farm, for example, needs 200 times the space of a gas power plant. Intermittence, subject to the availability of the natural source and to climate conditions. Low utilization factor and geographical misfit, meaning that high potential areas are often far from consumption areas and require large investment in infrastructures. When considering the pros and cons of the different sources of energies, it is clear that today the best partners for renewable is gas.
From an environmental perspective, gas-fired power plants are more efficient and produce about half of CO2 emissions with respect to a coal plant, and none of the other pollutants such as SOx, NOx, and fine dust. In terms of cost, gas is a highly competitive resource, as well as being reliable and secure. Gas is therefore the best energy source as it can supply power systems with base load profiles and considerable flexibility. We also have to remember that gas is largely available and easily accessible, with current estimates of proved worldwide reserves around 200,000 BCM. In this transition process towards renewable, natural gas is the ideal fuel for electricity generation and has also an important role to play in transport. Today, 58% of Eni portfolio is made up of gas, and the forthcoming project in Mozambique, Egypt, and Indonesia confirm Eni commitment in this front.
In terms of greenhouse gases reduction, we have implemented a number of initiatives that allowed us to reach a reduction of 28% in 2014 with respect to 2010 levels. In the upstream sector in particular, in our operated asset, we have reached the level of unitary emission of GHG of 0.2 tons of CO2 for each ton of oil produced, which is among the lowest in our oil and gas industry. In coming years, we are planning to further improve these levels, targeting a 43% reduction of GHG intensity by 2025. We will reach this goal through three main initiatives. Continuing the reduction of flared gas, mainly in Nigeria, Congo, and Libya, with a planned zero emission target in 2025.
Improving the monitoring and reduction of the fugitive emissions of methane along the oil and gas value chain, aiming at a reduction of 80% of GHG emissions in the upstream sector. Further improving the energy efficiency of our plants. Let's talk about renewable energies. Let me highlight that Eni is not a newcomer in this field. We have been working in solar technologies since 1980, and for over 30 years we have been engineering and producing high-quality photovoltaic cells, installing more than 50 large-scale solar plants both in Italy and internationally. We therefore have a distinct competence that form the basis of our new approach to this business. In late 2015, as the CEO has mentioned, we have created a new department named Energy Solutions, reporting directly to him, whose objective is to identify and deploy new initiatives related to renewable energies.
Since then, we have developed an original business model, which is complementary to our traditional oil and gas business. It is based on a number of distinctive competitive skills which includes our global presence and large portfolio of industrial assets that provide us with a large number of opportunities, both from a geographical and a technological point of view. The know-how in managing large-scale projects in a number of different domains from upstream to downstream to power generation. Our excellence in research and development, our ability to timely deploy the best ideas and concepts. Finally, the capacity to activate multiple and flexible financial levers according to type of project and location. We have identified 2 main types of projects, brownfield and greenfield.
Brownfield projects are related to existing industrial assets and have the objective of producing energy from renewable sources, taking advantage of all industrial, commercial, and contractual synergies. These include fossil fuel replacement projects like, for example, replacing fuel gas with solar power. Then greenfield projects, which are new renewable energy projects not related to existing assets. In recent months, we have identified and launched a number of large-scale renewable energy projects both in Italy and internationally. In Italy, we have started an important initiative called Progetto Italia, whose objectives is to make use of our own industrial land in order to implement renewable energy projects. We have identified 15 projects so far for a total capacity of around 220 MW, mainly photovoltaic, that will be installed before 2022.
Outside Italy, we have already started utility-scale photovoltaic projects in Pakistan, Egypt, and Algeria for a total planned capacity of around 160 MW to be completed by 2018. All these projects will be realized in a fast-track mode. We plan to take 6 FIDs by the end of this year for a total capacity of 150 MW. These plants will be completed and connected to the grid between end of 2017 and beginning of 2018. In terms of avoided emissions, the current portfolio of projects will save about 0.3 megatons per year of CO2 for the next 20 years. In the longer term, we will work to maximize the use of renewable energy in all our facilities, as well as expanding our overall installed capacity with objectives of making our business more efficient in terms of energy production and consumptions while contributing to the reduction of greenhouse gases emission.
Thank you very much.
We arrive at the end of our presentation. Let me find the last slide. At the end of this presentation, what we'd like to do is present our brand-new mission statement for Eni. I think that is a nice opportunity because I think that our mission statement summarize the essence of today presentation, of the ESG effort. I'd like to read with you and then to make some comment, and then pass to the Q&A. We are an energy company. We are working to build a future where everyone can access energy efficiently and sustainably. Our work is based on passion and innovation, on our unique strengths and skills, on the quality of our people, and in recognizing that diversity across all the aspects of our operations and organization is something to be cherished.
We believe in the value of long-term partnership with the countries and the communities where we operate. What I'd like to say, I'd like to take at least three main key words, or three main key statements from this mission statement. The first one is access to energy. That is inside our mission, which means, for us, development, building a better future for humanity. The second point that is equally important is diversity, which means respect for the others, inclusion, and enhancing all the potential around us. I think that diversity, we want to put in our statement, we want to put in our model, because it's what the appreciation of the, and the inclusion of the diversity is that what help us to grow and to become what we are. The last point, last keyword, is stakeholder engagement, which means create long-term value.
Now we finish the presentation, we are ready for Q&A. We'll answer with all our colleagues that are present, and maybe also our Chairwoman and our directors, if they like. Thank you very much.
Okay, we are ready now to start with the Q&A session. First of all, I would like to say that we will leave a session dedicated for investors. After the break, we will have a question time for the journalists.
For the journalists.
For the journalists. Please, before asking, state your name and company. Thanks.
Yes, please. Damn, that's
Bertrand, Kepler Cheuvreux. Just before asking my question, I would like to thank you again for choosing Paris and for choosing Kepler Cheuvreux to help you organize that important event for Eni. My question, two, please. One on Goliat. There has been several reports in the press about potential safety breaches and security issues on Goliat. Can you give us an update on the status, and also on all the remediation measures you may have taken since the various incidents? The second question, you also consume around three gigawatts for your own, I would say, production facilities. You have several projects that you've announced in Algeria, in Egypt, to try to substitute gas to renewables for your own production. What are the targets you want to achieve in terms of this potential substitution inside those three gigawatts?
Okay. First question is Goliat. Thank you for the question. Allow us to explain what happened. First of all, Goliat started this spring, and we already produce more than 10 million barrels of oil. From a technical point of view, we never had big problem. We have just had twice a electrical shutdown. You know that to reduce CO2 emission, that is a very good project also from this point of view. To reduce CO2 emission, all the electrical generation is onshore, and then we have cable to give power to the platform. That is quite unusual because normally, in the oil and gas business, we use our gas, for example, mainly gas, 100% gas, to give continuity. We have our generators, and we give continuity. That is because we want to keep continuity in our process.
The process is quite delicate because involve wells, involve separators, involve transmissions, involve offloading oil. We use power to offload oil. We want to be sure. Now we thought that with the goal, we thought that to reduce CO2, we have to make a big effort. That causes some problem. From a technical point of view, I think that we didn't have big problem. I think that when we start up in a so delicate environment, what we did, we realized a platform that is very sensitive, is very touchy platform. That as soon as you touch something, immediately react. Not just in term of emissions, clearly, gas leak, clearly, but also some human error. There are other systems that are more, for which the tolerance is much more higher. In this case, we wanted to really to reduce all the rest.
We had growing up in the knowledge and the experience with all the team. The team means all the safeties and all the operational people. The soft issue has been much more important in this case than the hardware. The hardware is good, but all the software that require strong knowledge to put up in place these projects has been quite important. To consider all big projects, now we are in Norway, I was thinking after once, all these projects have a long transition to put in place and fine-tuning all the different systems. We have to think that is just a four or five months of production, and for so big system sometimes require. Additionally, we have also these things that we had to train and retrain.
I have been there, talked with our people and also the stakeholders, with all the Norwegian stakeholder institution. It's clear that the Norwegian system is very clear. It's a three-party system. You have your workforces, you have company, you have your union. You have to involve, inclusion and involvement. I think that we learned the lesson. We paid the lesson quite expensive, but we learned the lesson that you have to adapt yourself and the system where you live. These three-party system that is very good, is very powerful, you must understand. The first time that we operated there, I want to be very clear and candid on that. I have to learn. We learned, I think. It's clearly that dialogue, inclusion, was one of the issue we had. I hope that we are improving.
The second point is perspective, and this is a very important question because it's related to our longer view about the decarbonization process in our company, especially because we have a big advantage, a big opportunity. We have a geographical fit because we are, and we have operation where we have the renewable energy in a very strong dimension. We have sun, and so we have the opportunity to do something that is very important. We hope that we can replace an important part of these three gigawatts. I think that the work is in progress. That would be our 10-year plan. Is a big project that we are going to work in the next 10 years. We want first to say it also green project, as Luca said, off-grid, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, where you cannot reach all the different point.
We already did some exercise some years ago in Congo. I think that this will be one of the main project, I say, a 10-year project. From the first estimation, we can say that we can, we have the possibility with the existing technology to replace at least one-third of this. We aim to do more. That will be a very important plan because it's going to free up a lot of gas, a lot of fuel that we can use in our countries where we work.
Yeah. Danny Meyer from APG Asset Management, a Dutch pension fund. I thought the question about the Goliat platform was interesting, and I wanted to add to that question about the
Douglas
actually the Val d'Agri field.
Sorry, can you repeat because it is tied with me, so. Douglas, then?
The Douglas project, I'm probably mispronouncing it, but it's the Val d'Agri field.
Val d'Agri field.
The offshore Italian, yes. Again, with the Douglas project back in 2013, the U.K. regulator requested Eni to inspect the completion pipe supports, earlier this year, has issued a prohibition notice that forced the shutdown of the field. In the case of the Val d'Agri field, also a forced shutdown prohibition by the Italian regulator and also some arrests in connection with the inspection. The question is, for the Douglas field, has Eni done something or how did Eni respond to the early warning? Was there any response from Eni back in 2013 when there was the first warning from the U.K. regulator? The second question is also, is there here a pattern of ignoring early warnings until there's a more serious, forced shutdown or investigation?
I just give you, there's no this pattern or trend because we have so many projects. I can answer about Val d'Agri. That is a quite clear case, at least for me, and I can answer about that. You want to talk about Douglas, and I talk about Val d'Agri?
Yes. About Douglas, you are describing a case that it could occur. It happened, it is the first kind of warning that was, let me say, sent to Eni UK. You know that Douglas is part-
Sorry
is part of the Liverpool Bay that was acquired by Eni, by a previous operator, is mature fields. It is part of normal activity, it could occur. It is the first case that it occurred. It was already replaced. What happened, the field is currently back to operation, there is no specific or any kind of off events that are justifying this kind of attention related to that.
For Val d'Agri, I think that is a more serious stance with Douglas. What happened, we received an injunction, and we stopped production in end of March, beginning of April, for something related to water injection. Water injection in the water disposal well. The issue that is being said that the water composition was not in line with the rules and authorization that we received for the project. This issue is not just that we neglected the warning, when we received the warning, we asked a complete third party to run the test for how many, 90 days, and then we test that. We doubled our people, and the composition of water was in line with the authorization, with the Italian laws and with authorization and with the international standard.
Exactly what inject in the U.S. or U.K. or Norway or Kazakhstan or everywhere. We discuss with the prosecutor, and we obtain the possibility to restart. We made additional separation for oil and gas, some very marginal remediation job that didn't imply any new authorization in the project. It has been done very quickly. Our position is clear that what we did and what we are doing is in line with the rules. Just to give you an idea, this project that is run by us and, as a partner, Shell, passed through a very long authorization process in Italy, and we have 26 different signature and authorization between the central and the region and all the different stakeholders. Has been very, very long.
In Italy, the time to market is at least double or three times what we have on average in the rest of the world. That means that there is a lot of attention because the environment is very sensitive, a lot of population, small country. Regulation may be more stringent than in Norway, if I can say. In this case, what we think that we did the right things. Now there is a process ongoing. We're going to see at the end. It was not that we neglected some early advice or some early notice. It's that we think, and also the third party think, that what we are doing is in line with the international standard. That is my answer.
Veronique.
Thank you, and thank you for the very interesting presentation. I have two questions. One is on your integrated model, and the other one on governance. The first one is, did you envisage to improve the reporting and targets on a regular basis of your integrated model to help us understand how it underpins your core business? We're interested in more granularity into the CapEx, OpEx, output, sales beyond your very clear license to operate model. The second one is on governance. We are very pleased to see here our elected representative on the board, recent decisions raised strong concerns around the governance of the board and the respect of minority shareholders. I was wondering if you could give us some views on that.
Okay. I can answer on the first question, and I ask our chairwoman to answer to the second one. For the first question, we present our KPI and our results on a six-month basis. We make full disclosure. Once a year, we are going also to make a presentation, a specific presentation on sustainability, environment, social issues like we did today. We want to start a tradition to disclose completely what we are doing because we are doing a lot, and we understood that nobody knew, or few people knew about our big efforts on sustainability. The answer is yes. We are going to present figures, but we would like also to start presenting how we work. That is give much more color and understanding, respect to just numbers. Emma Marcegaglia.
Well, thank you for the question. It's my pleasure to explain what happened. I think you are referring to Karina Litvack's situation. What happened is the following. In July, the board was made aware of a judicial investigation involving, among other people, also Karina Litvack, which alleged wrongdoing, offense against Eni and its CEO. If you want some more details, I can do it, but it's an offense against Eni and its CEO. Of course, as always we do in this situation, the board took legal advice, and I don't know if you know the Italian civil code, and the Italian statutory rules, and also the Italian corporate governance code. They said that when there is the risk of prejudicial circumstances, the board could be liable for negligence if it doesn't take action.
In this situation, the board felt, in a certain way, it had no alternative but to remove temporarily Karina from being a part of the Risk and Control Committee. Of course, she's still a member of the Compensation Committee. She's still member of the Sustainability and Scenarios Committee. She, of course, full member of the board. She work a lot with us. Why we did that? Because this was done because there was a concern regarding a potential conflict of interest between her position and the board and the company. This notwithstanding, I want to say that the board has full confidence in Karina's competence, integrity, and innocence. We are determined to work constantly in the best way with her, and I think I can say that she wants to work in the best way with the board, in the interest of the company.
We are also working together very closely, because we'd like to bring the case to the fastest possible conclusion. We are also working on that. Of course, as soon as the charges are dropped, it's my firm intention to propose to the board to renominate her in the Risk and Control Committee. Apart from this, of course, we give her full support, moral and also financial. The company will pay for her defense. There is an insurance. We think the insurance will pay, but if there will be any problem with the insurance, the company will pay for her. It's very clear, this. I think we will work all together in the spirit of the best mutual trust and ongoing collaboration. Today, she's here with us, and we are very happy that she's here with us.
Of course, we consider very valuable her work on any field, but particularly on the field we are discussing together today.
I just have to add one point that for this presentation, Karina helped me on the Q&A. Just to give you the situation and the environment. Unfortunately, that happened, but we are working very closely and well together.
Matthias Baer from BMO, and thank you again for the clarification on the governance issue, and we look forward to receiving more information as this matter progresses. I've got two questions. One relating to what you were speaking about, the portfolio resilience, how you're testing that at Eni, and you talked a lot about cost competitiveness and your focus on gas. You said very little about oil and how you stress test different scenarios for how oil demand will impact your portfolio decisions going forward. If you could speak to that would be great. Second question is about the new energy solutions business that you were talking about, and it's good to see that Eni, together with some of your European peer companies, are sort of building up that institutional capability to look at alternative energies going forward. Question is, what are your business objectives with this?
Is this a potential third leg you're growing there in addition to oil and gas? What are the underlying KPIs you're looking at in terms of revenue, in terms of CapEx, R&D? If you could speak more to the numbers you alluded to, understanding the timeline of these objectives would be good. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Sorry. I didn't speak about the oil, but when I mentioned the 450 ppm, so the two degrees scenario, clearly that was related to the oil price. When we talk about the oil price, and we show the oil price that is a long-term EUR 65 per barrel, that is one of the lowest in the industry. That means that also from the oil side, from the oil point of view, that we are very resilient. In view that our upstream portfolio on average is EUR 27 per barrel, and technically is less than EUR 20 per barrel. Just to give you a breakeven, now we have less than EUR 1 on average up to now, less than EUR 1 per barrel on average for exploration. We have EUR 6.20 per barrel for operating costs, and we have EUR 11 per barrel for development cost.
We are improving in term of cost and asset. We are improving because with the recent discovery of the last couple of years, we increased the conventional, or we can say near field discoveries, and that reduced the overall breakeven because we have less investment. Nooros was an example, Marine. We go through a transformation of our activities, especially where we are producing oil and gas. We have facilities. We want absolutely our target when we talk about the three gigawatts that we consume, and now we are other project, we are going to increase the internal consumption. Really, we want to displace, if possible, where possible, but at the maximum level of this. That is a big impact, but is a transformation inside our core business. The core business and the renewable one, they are going together.
It's clearly that the renewable one exists, and we can do that because we have the core business. It's an improvement. It's a strong optimization in the core business, making it more efficient. What I'd like to do now is really to focus on that. We have a huge amount of energy that we can produce. We talk about 10-year plan that is very important. We talk about hundreds of millions EUR to invest. Again, when we talk about this investment and we look at the internal rate of return of this project, that normally is not so high for a renewable. When you look at the renewable business in Italy, you see an average of five, six, four, maybe less if there is no subsidy % of internal rate of return. In Africa, in our case, also in Italy, in our case, a little bit different. Why?
First of all, we are replacing gas, we are not burning gas to create electricity. We are using renewable. The gas that we get from this operation is not included, but we have to be included in the internal rate of return. We are working on our installation, we don't have investment. We are working on our land, we are not bidding or tendering for getting land. Our surrounding cost Because of the nature of this project, are less. We have the land, we have the infrastructure, we have the facilities, and we push out gas that we can get to sell or to put in the system. This renewable system, if you ask me, that is a business, I say, "Yes, it's a business." It's a good business.
Yes, it's a good business because you make money, but especially, you reduce completely your emission. We are in the right place to take advantage out of that. If your question is, became a third leg, I think that it became a third leg, and is going to grow as a big leg in future. Yes.
No.
My name is Jean Robert Reznik. I am involved in tourist development.
Tourism.
Tourist development. This is my specialty. I was very impressed by this slide. The slide where you have indicated all the action you are making to develop countries, healthcare, education, and so on. I have succeeded in the past to bring some industrial companies, airlines, and others to do and to participate to tourism. Instead to participate in bribe, I think that this is a touchy subject now to participate to the development of the countries. What you are doing and presenting here is the key for me. It's the key of your presentation.
I think that some countries where you are, like Tunisia, particularly Tunisia today, Egypt with what is happening now in Egypt and the disaster in the tourism industry. I think that if you can, perhaps with Italian company by the way, develop and reinforce the only potential that this country has. I am also thinking to Morocco where I am advising the government. I think that if you can say if you are in all these actions that you are now doing, if you can be at the side of the tourism-
Tourism
development of some countries.
My colleagues remember me that we did in the past in Italy, for example, we work on that with hotels. The question you are making is very interesting because it's a question that a lot of countries are asking us to help them to develop the tourism. Why we didn't I don't exclude that we can't invest as a social project. Why we didn't? I think that first, we have to solve a lot of more existential issues and like poverty, like electricity, like education, like water. I talked with one of the person that say why we don't develop tourism. I say, sometimes not very nice that you have rich people, tourists, rich people close to somebody that is not able to eat, drink. There's no electricity.
I said to everyone, "We are ready to do, but we have priorities." We think that the first things to do is to give equal treatment to all these people. We cannot accept to spend money in a big hotel. I talk personally. It's like what I think from my and a lot of these people dying. There are too many people that are dying in Africa, and nobody say anything. When I told you that there are 450,000 people that are dying because they cook with wood or charcoal and they heat themselves with that and they go to bed in the morning, they are died. I take your point. I think that we have to help these people also to diversify.
We have to do. We have to really focus and to put our countries, Europe or other developing country and the African country in front of the fact that we cannot have big gap. We cannot live, survive with super rich people and super poor people. We cannot say 1.3 billion people without electricity. No, we cannot. It's something that the Western countries, that our residential model have to face. We have to think about that. That's one way I talked before about the profit and the value. Profit short, value long. I think that as a society, we have to think that the long term is made by equal treatment. Sorry if from the tourism I come to a larger talk, but it's very talk of today and a very talk about future.
The refugees is because we didn't think about the future. We thought that our model is perfect. Is not perfect. That are the result. We create A Western, I talk about Europe, [inaudible], and a very poor Africa, for example. I think that we have to try priority. Because we have money, we have something, we have to do something with this sense. You try it. No.
Thank you very much again for your interesting presentation. My name is Matthias Noor. I work for Robeco. I have a question related to the carbon price that you make reference to. You use $40 US, which I think is a little bit more ambitious than what we have seen by some of your peers. I think also more accurately reflecting the externalities. I was wondering, could you give an example of a concrete project where an investment decision was actually put on hold or canceled the whole project due to this internal carbon price that you use?
I can give the floor to Roberto to give some talk about that. We have to start from the point that our projects are conventional, so with a very low CO2. There are a lot of gassy project, and our heating 27. That is the first point. We're also applying $40. We are quite resilient to the CO2 because we are very low. Secondly, what we are doing in our project, Goliat is an example, from the conceptual design of the project, then the basic design, the FEED, is really to put in place all the different action internal processes to reduce the CO2. For that reason, when I, in the presentation, said that the readiness, we use $40 per barrel in real terms so that they grow.
We are ready because from now applying that, we create a conceptual design of the project that is a very low level of CO2. For that reason, we don't have this case because we work to avoid this kind of case. Maybe, Roberto, I don't know if you have to add anything in the evaluation of all the projects that you are developing.
Well, we apply systematically these rules. Carbon price, actually.
Actually.
No, I have the microphone. Certainly, we started continuous iteration until the project economics were robust enough.
Fair enough
to go for authorization. As Claudio said, a lot of efforts are put in the engineering design because if, for whatever reason, we see that the $40 per tons start weakening our project, the profitability of our project, we go back to the design, and we see how to have a more energy efficient project. This is possible because in the model I've shown earlier, you have to consider that we have now created in-house an engineering hub instead of subcontracting to third parties this activity. There is a continuous iteration, also on the design of the facilities in a way that we are able to present a sustainable project. Yes, the answer is, thanks to this sensitivity, we definitely intervene on the project, but we did not cancel projects as of now.
Maybe Massimo can add something.
Yes.
Massimo you know very well, is our CFO.
Just to give you some numbers. As Claudio said, we used to verify applying the EUR 40 per tons, the return in our investment. We perform this exercise every six months, applied to the full set of projects that are under the supervision on our board. We are talking about project that amount in term of full life CapEx, more than EUR 40 billion. The first very short comment that we apply EUR 40 together with a Brent scenario that is, as Claudio said, pretty conservative in the environment. In order to judge the EUR 40 level, I would say the best way to do it is to combine the EUR 40 together with the Brent scenario.
Having said that, what I would say that if we apply EUR 40 to the overall project I mentioned, the reduction in term of IRR is just 0.5%, so very small. Just two projects out of the total would fall below the hurdle rates. In any case, the rate of return would be higher than the weighted average cost of capital. That's the reason why, because this project has been launched in the previous environment with higher price, and that the result today is the one I just mentioned. I would say the final consideration that we feel much more comfortable in this exercise, having seen these kind of results.
Yeah. Answer, Luca Cosentino? That's immediately.
Pierre Henri Pavel, Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations. I have two question, if I may. The first one is related, as you say, that Goliat, you learned some lessons. I'd just like to understand, does it have any impact on your divestment strategy? Especially for the shareholder perspective, how to be sure to set up in a new oil country, a large LNG plant. In your last conference call, if I understood correctly, you're not expecting to give the operating, to sell or to give the operatorship of the new LNG plant. Does Goliat event recently change your mind? My subsequent question is going to be on your exposure to Africa, and especially for corruption. I'm sorry to you. According to some experts, there is a higher probability in those countries.
I'd just like to understand, do you have internal different way to deal with these kind of countries? Thank you.
Thank you. For Goliat, no, I think that there is no issue, no way, no hope for everybody to become operator of Goliat. Until the last drop of oil. I want to be clear because maybe somebody can make interpretation about my word. We are very happy about our relationship and our operationship there. I have to remember that we have been the first to discover oil there, and we are the first to put in production field, and we have a large block there. We operate or we are the statutory. We consider that in this kind of environment, the experience that we got until now is something that the country and the other company have to exploit, to use. The learning curve is very high, and Norway is a beautiful country.
I said that we didn't understood [inaudible], so now we understood, the three-party model. For corruption, that is not just an African issue, I think. It's everywhere. We have our EITI principle. We have our rules. We have our filter. If you consider the country where we are, we are in the country where all the majors are. Normally, with some exception, I think the situation improved in the last years. Why? Because these countries had to be more open, internal transparency, showing data. Now, if they don't show, we show. If they don't present data about taxes, bonuses, or all the other payments we do, now we do, and that is a very strong point. In most of the country, and for all the big project, there is a tender. That is another important point.
About the process, the governance, maybe I can give the floor to Massimo Mantovani to explain what is our process.
Let me say that Claudio underlined the issue is everywhere. We do have a system whereby there is a risk assessment based on each country, because each country, for instance, consider even Italy, has some particularities. That does have an impact on the overall system, which is nevertheless centralized. We have an anti-corruption unit, which is now in the integrated compliance model, and is segregated from business. It's also overlooking on the subsidiaries on the activities they do. This system has been implemented also looking at the best practice internationally. We have constant contact with all other peers, and we ensure that the system is on with what they do. Claudio said something which is very important, that there is an issue of which is a cultural issue. Probably the perception we have is that it's moving in all countries internally.
That is something which we probably have to put an extra effort, not only on what we do for ourselves, but on how we can actually increase the culture in the company, in the country where we work, which really is a benefit for everybody.
I'd like just to close with talking about the EITI action. We joined them in 2005. Since 2005, at least I talk for our company, we have been very proactive. We wrote to all the different, and we are writing, we are writing, we wrote to all the major institutions, we met president, we met minister, we met not all, or meet with our people to explain about transparency in most of the countries now are joined the group. This provide the transparency that is the base. You must have internal rules. You have to apply internal rules, it's clear that we need all the system that is moving to a better system.
I think this movement and transparency is one of the most important things, because if everybody has to show what they pay, and everybody has to show what they receive, I don't know how they can do, what they receive is a quite important step. As a company, I think in terms of EITI, we have been one of the most engaged, and public also with public engagement.
I just wanted to say, of course, the anti-corruption culture was already very strong in the company. When this board started to work in 2014, we dedicated a lot of times and efforts on this. Just to give you an example, in 2013, the statutory board asked for an impact assessment, an assessment of the overall compliance anti-corruption system. The result was a very good one, they give some suggestion to even go further, and this board implemented that. We had also some other advice, for example, for another American law firm on how to do that. The anti-corruption process is a continuous progress of making better. We also decided something different, and this was an advice coming from our legal department.
For example, when there is a decision that has to be taken, the anti-corruption office head has to give his assessment to the one who has to decide. If the decision, for example, on investment is coming to the board, the board want to see the due diligence on anti-corruption. We had huge discussion on some cases, we look at all the red flags, we decided all together. Just to give you the idea that this board has worked a lot on that, and we think that we have to increase continuously on this point. The attention of the board is really very high on this.
The last thing I wanted to say is also we decided when we look at the risk, we have a very strong risk management, we also decided to look also at the reputational risk, because also this is something we want to consider. Just to give the idea that we are working a lot on this point.
Great. Grazie.
I think that we are running late. Just the last question, short question.
Yes. Hello. Bruno Raguet from Montpensier, French asset management company. Today in your presentation, I was very impressed that it took you only three months to go from discovery to first oil at Nooros.
Nooros.
Where I was less impressed is in Nigeria. For the past 50 years, a number of villages, communities in Nigeria have been complaining, shouting, crying, weeping, begging oil majors to stop flaring. This morning, you're telling us that you are contemplating another nine years to stop flaring in Nigeria.
Not in Nigeria, worldwide.
Worldwide.
Nigeria is I'm sorry.
I don't know. Maybe it's finished in Nigeria, but I doubt it. Can you explain, what's the technical complexity to stop routine flaring? How much money would it cost? Can you help us understand?
No, I'm glad this question is one of the main points I discussed during my presentation. We started the flaring down in Nigeria, and we invest in Nigeria and Congo because where we are operating, and we have a flaring situation offshore, for example, and we invested EUR 2 billion. We invested the EUR 2 billion, and because we decided that we wanted to use this gas for a power plant. We built in the Niger Delta, with a very difficult exercise, we built a 450 in a combined cycle, a 450 MW power, and we reduced drastically our flare. Now our flare in Nigeria that is much, much, much more, is practically finished, and we are injecting offshore. Now in Nigeria, we are in a steady state. We're not developing any more, so it's very easy.
When we say that is why in 2025, because worldwide, we are increasing production, and we produce more gas. Now we are on each project as an internal project for flaring. Or you use, otherwise you inject. Goliat is an example. Goliat inject all the gas. In Congo, we built a power plant of 300 MW. Now that can be extended to 450, like in Nigeria. We made also the high tension mega station distribution line for the villages. When you want to reduce flaring, you have to invest. Invest in activity that sometimes are less economic. For that reason, I will stress the point. That sometimes you have to look at the value and less at the profit.
If you ask me how many major company built a combined cycle and decide to invest in the access to energy and electricity, but investing in combined cycle in Africa? Zero. We'll be the only one. Not this board, I had to convince the board. I had to explain to the investors that, "Why you put this money? You can have a return of 20%, 22% in your upstream business. You are putting this money, that our money, to reduce the flare." You ask me why. I have to explain, because I look at the future. If you want money now, say, "No, this money, put somewhere else and burn this gas." We have to consider where we live and the contradiction and the paradox. There are people that want all and die tomorrow.
There are people that say, "Do something for the people that are dying, so you can last more." We are in this side. I'm in this side. I want to look at the future.
The board is on this side.
We are on this side, and my board is with me, I think also my investor. For that reason, I'm today here to say these kinds of things that maybe can be a little bit difficult to say, difficult to hear, but I think that we have to do something for our world, for our company, and for ourselves. That's what I think. Thank you.
I think that this is the best conclusion of today. We now move to the break, then we will have the Q&A.
Absolutely.