Enrico Mattei Head of Eni, Italian oil company Date of Birth: 29.04.1906 Country: Italy

Biography of Enrico Mattei

Enrico Mattei, the head of the Italian oil company Eni, played a crucial role in the development of Italy's oil industry. Born in 1906, Mattei was the seventh child in his family and started working at the age of 14. During World War II, he participated in the Resistance movement and became one of the partisan commanders of the Christian Democratic "People's Brigades".

In 1945, Mattei was appointed as the leader of the crisis-ridden Italian state oil company AGIP. He successfully revived the company and instead of privatizing it, he focused on exploration. Thanks to his active reconnaissance efforts, several oil fields were discovered in the Po River Valley in northern Italy. The development of these fields allowed Italy to maintain energy independence and allocate resources towards the country's own economy instead of relying on oil imports.

In 1953, Mattei became the head of the semi-autonomous state energy holding company ENI, where he established a thriving oil refining industry, pipeline system, and a network of gas stations in Italy. Under his leadership, ENI signed advantageous agreements for resource development with the governments of Iran, Egypt, India, Morocco, Tunisia, and Sudan. In 1960, Mattei also signed an oil supply agreement with the Soviet Union in Moscow.

It is believed that Mattei coined the term "Seven Sisters" to refer to the cartel of American (Standard Oil of New Jersey (Exxon), Socony-Vacuum Oil (Mobil), Standard Oil of California (Chevron), Texaco, and Gulf Oil) and British (Anglo-Persian Oil Company (British Petroleum) and Royal Dutch Shell) oil companies.

Unfortunately, Mattei's life came to a tragic end in 1962 when he died in an airplane crash. Initially, it was believed to be an accident caused by bad weather conditions, but in 1995, his body was exhumed and a forensic examination using advanced technology revealed that the plane had exploded due to sabotage, implicating the involvement of the CIA in his murder.