The story
Founded by Enrico Mattei on Feb 10, 1953, in Milan.1
1950s–1960s
Eni was founded in 1953 by an existing company, Agip, which was created in 1926 with the aim to explore for oilfields, and acquire and commercialize oil and derivatives. In March 1953, Enrico Mattei was nominated Eni's chairman. In 1952, the logo of the then nascent Eni was selected. The logo is a six-legged dog, an imaginary animal symbolizing the sum of a car's four wheels and the two legs of its driver.
Starting in 1954, Eni acquired extensive exploration rights in North Africa, signing an agreement with the Egyptian government led by Nasser while providing an active and equal role for the crude producing countries through the establishment of joint ventures. In 1957, Eni pushed for a similar agreement, known as the "Mattei formula", to be signed with Persian Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and the National Iranian Oil Company. In 1960, during the Cold War period, Eni signed an agreement with the Soviet Union for the importation of Russian crude at low prices.
On 27 October 1962, Enrico Mattei's airplane mysteriously exploded near Bascapè, on his way to Milan from Catania. His death was initially considered an accident, but later it was confirmed to be a murder with the aim of protecting and hiding important economic and political interests in Italy and especially abroad, as it is clearly stated in the records of the trial on the assassination of the journalist Mauro De Mauro, who was investigating the death of Enrico Mattei.
During the following years, Eni signed joint venture contracts with foreign companies to supply crude from Egypt to Iran and from Libya to Tunisia. In 1963, Eni acquired a majority stake in Italgas.
1970s–1980s
In October 1973, after the Yom Kippur War and the OPEC embargo against the United States and the Netherlands by OPEC members and Arab countries, a serious oil crisis occurred, causing Eni to consolidate its position in the international market by signing an agreement with Sonatrach, the Algerian state oil entity for natural gas supply.
In 1974, Eni signed an agreement with the Libyan government, followed by additional agreements with Egypt, Nigeria and Tunisia.
During the mid-1970s, Eni planned a major infrastructure for transporting natural gas over long distances, by building a pipeline network of thousands of miles throughout Europe and the Mediterranean.
After the inauguration of the Trans-Mediterranean Pipeline connecting Algeria to Sicily through Tunisia, Eni signed a new agreement with Libya for the exploitation of Boùri, the biggest oilfield in the centre of the Mediterranean, and developed its international role within the oil industry.
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1990s
In 1992, Eni became a joint-stock company by Law Decree, and was listed to the Italian and New York Stock Exchange in 1995.
From 1995 to 1998, Eni successfully made four share offers, as 70% of its capital assets were sold to private shareholders.
As the price of oil collapsed in 1998, like other major companies, Eni got into the melee of mergers, international acquisitions, new exploration and the foundation of real super-companies.
2000s
Since 2000, Eni has been developing the Kashagan oilfield a major offshore discovery, along the Caspian Sea.
In 2005, the Blue Stream pipeline, projected to supply gas from southern Russia to Turkey, was inaugurated as a joint venture between Eni and Gazprom.
In 2007, Eni signed an agreement to conduct South Stream a feasibility study with Gazprom to import Russian gas into Europe across the Black Sea.
Activist asset manager Knight Vinke, who owns 1% of the outstanding shares of the company, began pressuring Eni's management to operate a spin-off of Eni's gas activities. In its opinion, this would solve the undervaluation of the company and release up to 50 billion euros ($70bn) of hidden value.
2010s
In 2010, Eni achieved a key production milestone in Iraqi Zubair oil field. After getting a licence in 2006 for the exploration of an offshore area in the north of Mozambique, known as Area 4, Eni announced several major natural gas discoveries between 2011 and 2012 such as Mamba South, Mamba North, Mamba North East and Coral 1.
In February 2014, Eni discovered oil at its Democratic Republic of the Congo offshore block. Since 2012, Eni has been selling off refining and marketing assets it owned in eastern Europe to increase profitability. By 2013 Eni had already reduced its refining capacity by 13 percent. In May 2014 Eni agreed to sell their 32.5% share in Česká rafinerská a.s. (CRC), a refining company in the Czech Republic, to MOL Group of Hungary.
In June 2014, the company signed an agreement with Sasol to acquire a 40% interest in a permit to explore 82,000-km2 offshore of South Africa's east coast. In 2014, Eni launched a new plan to convert its conventional refineries into biorefineries: the first plant was in Porto Marghera, in 2019 the second one opened in Gela. In January 2015, Eni in collaboration with Vitol Energy signed a $7 billion contract with the government of Ghana. This agreement was reached to produce oil and gas at Cape Three Points in the Western Region of Ghana, in an attempt to enable Ghana to meet its power and energy needs. In August 2015, Eni announced the discovery of a huge gasfield off the coast of Egypt. In 2016, Eni launched Progetto Italia, which aims to redevelop its industrial areas and to create new renewable sources production plants: in 2018 the first photovoltaic plant was inaugurated in Assemini, the second opened in Porto Torres, both in Sardinia. In July 2017, the oil giant accepted responsibility for an oil spill affecting the Fylde coast of Blackpool in the United Kingdom.
In January 2018, Eni launched its new HPC4 supercomputer, one of the most powerful computing systems which allows a more effective and fast exploration of oil and gas reservoirs. Since February 2020 Eni replaced the HPC4 supercomputer with the new model HPC5, which has three times the computing ability compared to the previous one and debuted in sixth position as the most powerful supercomputer of the world. In November 2024, Eni launched its new HPC6 supercomputer, the most powerful in Europe and the fifth in the world, capable of executing over 600 million billion complex mathematical operations in just one second.
In March 2018, Eni reached an agreement with MIT to fund fusion research projects run out of the MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC)’s newly created Laboratory for Innovation in Fusion Technologies (LIFT). The expected investment in these research projects will amount to about $2 million over the following years. The Rovuma LNG project was approved in May 2019 by the government of Mozambique. The project is a joint venture between ExxonMobil, Eni and CNPC. Eni will focus on the construction and operation of the upstream facilities.
2020s
In March 2021, Eni exited the Pakistani market and sold its assets to Prime International Oil & Gas Company. The deal include the assets sold, interests in eight development and production leases and four exploration licences. Prime International Oil & Gas Company, a newly established joint venture (JV) between Eni Pakistan local employees and Hub Power Company.
In 2018, Eni became the first shareholder of the American company Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS), a spin-out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston. CFS aims to build a fusion reactor based on tokamak technology, much more compact and cheaper compared to other existing projects such as the international ITER. On 5 September 2021, CFS successfully built and tested a 1:1 scale prototype of a magnet based on HTS (High Temperature Superconductors) superconductors. The experiment demonstrated for the first time that it is possible to create a fusion chamber where the confinement of the plasma is ensured by this type of super magnets. This kind of fusion chamber will allow the reactor to reach very high temperatures, above 100 million degrees, necessary to make the controlled fusion of deuterium and tritium possible and thus to produce sustainable energy. In December 2021, ENI become the first energy company in the world to highly invest in magnetic confinement nuclear fusion, through a $1.8 billion partnership in CFS, along with Google and Bill Gates.
In 2022, during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the major oil and gas companies, including Eni, reported sharp rises in interim revenues and profits. The rises are influenced by the prices of raw materials such as oil and gas which have significantly increased, due to their shortage. On 17 May 2022, Eni announced the procedures for the creation of an account with Gazprombank in dual currency (euro and rubles), in order to be able to proceed with the payment of Russian gas supplies, following the unilateral amendment of the contracts ordered by the Russian Federation. The decision was taken in agreement with the Italian government and does not violate the existing sanctions. The European Commissioner for Economy Paolo Gentiloni and the competent Russian federal authorities have confirmed that payments will continue to be made in euros and that the conversion operations will be carried out by Russian clearing agents without the involvement of the Russian Central Bank. In June 2022, Eni signed a joint venture with QatarEnergy for the North Field East (NFE) expansion which will be the worlds largest LNG project and begin production in 2025. Eni holds a 3.125% stake in the four LNG trains estimated to produce 8 million tonnes a year each.
In October 2023, QatarEnergy signed LNG supply deal with Italy's Eni for 27 years. Affiliates of QatarEnergy and Eni signed a long-term sale and purchase agreement for up to 1 million tons per year (mtpa) of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Qatar's North Field expansion project. After 10 years of force majeure, Eni, Sonatrach and BP resumed exploration in their blocks in the Ghadames Basin (A-B) and offshore Block C in August 2023, continuing their contract obligations.
In January 2024, Eni acquired Neptune Energy for $4.9 billion. The list of assets includes Neptune’s involvement in the Geng North-1 gas field in Indonesia, as well as projects in Western Europe, Australia and North Africa. Neptune’s business in Norway was purchased directly by Vår Energi, a subsidiary of Eni. The assets in Germany were released before the transaction, and will remain with Neptune, managed by the shareholders as a separate group. In March 2024, Eni made discoveries off the Ivory Coast. In July 2024, new oil and gas was discovered in Block 9 of the Yopaat-1 EXP exploration well located off the shore of Mexico in the Sureste Basin. In July 2024, Vår Energi extended its supply deal with Eni until 2036 for up to 5bcm of natural gas.
On 13 February 2025, Eni announced its Formula One return by supplying fuels to Renault-powered BWT Alpine F1 Team from 2025 season onwards. In April 2025, Eni announced that it would buyback $1.7 billion in shares over the course of the year even as the outlook on oil continues to worsen. Eni had an adjusted net profit in the first three months of 2025 of just 1.41 billion euros, which was an 11% decrease from the previous year which caused the company to revise its spending plan. Increases in underlying hydrocarbon production is expected to grow by 4% per year until 2028.
From Wikipedia’s article on Eni, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.8