Italy initiates its oil and gas policy with the founding of 1926 of AGIP (Agenzia Generale Italiana Petroli).
Hydrocarbon exploration began in Italy and cooperation with Romania, Albania and Iraq is begun. The Agip distribution network is set up, while exploration activities continue with little success until Enrico Mattei, nominated Extraordinary Commissioner, is engaged to close down the company. But following the discovery of reservoir of natural gas at Caviaga in the Po Valley, the liquidation process is interrupted.

Enrico Mattei: Eni’s first Chairman

E.N.I. (Ente Nazionale Idrocarburi) was established in 1953 with Enrico Mattei as its first chairman.
The company has the objective of supplying energy to Italy and contributing to the country’s industrial development, Mattei breaks the monopoly of the big oil companies by introducing a new contractual formula with producing countries. This formula, first adopted in Egypt and Iran, makes it possible for local governments to share in the profits deriving from the development of oil and gas production.
Important discoveries in the Adriatic. Close to Ravenna Europe’s first offshore gas reservoir and the "El Borma" reservoir in Tunisia, one of the largest in Africa.

Eni identifies natural gas as an alternative source of energy to face off the oil crisis resulting from the first oil embargo and signs agreements to import gas from the Soviet Union and the Netherlands.
Record drilling depths at the Malossa reservoir, near Milan (5500 metres).
Off the Sicilian coast the first remote-controlled platform is installed at the Perla field.
Snam (Società Nazionale Metanodotti, founded in 1941) inaugurates the Transmed pipeline which, at more than 2500 km in length, links the storage facility at Hassi-R-Mel, in the Algerian desert, with the Po Valley. Transmed crosses the Sicilian Channel at depths of more than 650 metres.
A new offshore drilling record off the coast of Otranto, more than 800 metres. Drilling at Villafortuna

Transmed - the 2500 km-long pipeline between Algeria and the Po Valley

Eni, a state-owned company goes public. Around 63% of the company’s share capital is sold in four public offerings between 1995 and 1998.
Agip expands its international activities with new acquisitions in Algeria, China, Angola, the North Sea and Egypt.
Important agreements are reached with Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Nigeria and Angola. In the latter two, such agreements concern the development of deep-water activities.
The "Aquila” well, in the deep waters of the Otranto Channel, enters production.
Eni absorbs Agip, which becomes the Exploration & Production Division.
Daily production tops 1 million barrels of oil equivalent.

Eni strengthens its position in exploration and production activities with the acquisition of British Borneo and Lasmo.
The laying of Blue Stream, a 1250 km-long gas pipeline connecting Russia and Turkey, under the Black Sea, is completed. The maximum depth reached is 2150 metres on the seabed.
The important discovery of the giant Kashagan reservoir is the first of a series of successes in the Kazakh Caspian Sea.
The process of integration continues: Snam and AgipPetroli are absorbed by Eni becoming the Gas & Power and Refining & Marketing Divisons respectively.
The Western Libya Gas Project is launched, the first large-scale project aimed at exploiting Libyan produced natural gas and its marketing in Europe. The gas is transported by Greenstream, the longest undersea gas pipeline in the Mediterranean (520 km) which reaches depths of up to 1127 metres on the seabed.

Exploration activities at the Kashagan reservoir, Kazakhstan