ENI

abbreviation of Ente Nazionale Idrocarburi (Italian: State Hydrocarbons Authority), state-owned Italian energy group. ENI is a fully integrated petroleum producer, transporter, refiner, and retailer established in 1953. It supplies nearly half of Italy's energy needs, primarily through overseas purchases. Since World War II, the public sector has played an exceptionally large role in Italian economic life. ENI is one of the three major state economic holding corporations, operating primarily in oil and natural gas. Although responsible to the Ministry of State Participations, ENI enjoys considerable financial and operating autonomy. The company is an outgrowth of AGIP, an oil and gas agency set up by the Italian fascist government in the 1930s. In 1952 Enrico Mattei, a former resistance fighter, persuaded the Italian postwar government to coordinate the AGIP gas and oil holdings in the new ENI. AGIP is now the retail subsidiary of ENI and sells oil products through service stations in Africa and Europe. Exploration for oil, especially in offshore areas, has been intensified by ENI, but national production accounts for only a small portion of domestic consumption. Oil is imported from a number of diversified sources, especially in the Middle East. ENI is also in charge of natural-gas exploration and imports. ENI subsidiaries engage in exploration, production, and refining of oil and natural gas. The company also has interests in nuclear energy, chemicals, and mining and metallurgy and manufactures heavy and textile machinery and owns a mass-circulation daily newspaper, a news service, and several advertising agencies. In the 1980s, ENI's joint ventures included the establishment and operation of an oil refinery in Iran.