An Italian company Eni Spa reportedly earned $550 million after cancelling and then reselling the liquefied natural gas to Pakistan.

Interestingly, the Bloomberg report revealed that it missed a number of shipments between late 2021 and early 2023.

During the aforementioned period time, Eni’s LNG ships were stopped going to Pakistan and headed to Turkey instead.

Eni in its defense said that it didn’t benefit from the situation, and all undelivered cargoes to Pakistan were beyond the reasonable control of the firm.

“Only where mutually acceptable commercial solutions were not available, the contractual provisions for failed delivery were applied,” the company was quoted as saying by the publication.

At least four out of 12 shipments were not delivered by Eni, as stated in the government data. Moreover, Two of Pakistan’s long-term suppliers, including Eni, began to cancel more deliveries in late 2021 citing their own shortages.

The cancellations came at the time when gas crisis hit the global market in 2021. Russian’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 made the crisis worst which forced everyone to move towards LNG.

Pakistan’s contracts were at a fraction of spot LNG prices during the peak of energy crisis, and included a comparatively modest 30% penalty for cancellation, making it profitable for suppliers to legally scrap shipments.

This price hike becomes reason for LNG producing companies including Eni which earned €2.1 billion ($2.3 billion) before interest and taxes.