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Eni’s chief
executive has contacted rebels in Benghazi about energy cooperation, as
the Italian oil and gas group moved to protect its role as the leading
foreign oil operator in Libya.

Eni’s efforts were
supported on Monday by Italy giving Libyan rebels its full backing. CEO
Paolo Scaroni had phone contact with representatives of the rebels’
National Transitional Council in recent days, Italy’s foreign ministry
said. Eni declined to comment.

That corrected an
earlier comment by minister Franco Frattini who said Scaroni visited
Benghazi two days ago and had meetings on restarting cooperation on
energy with the council. There had been concern that state-controlled
Eni’s position in Libya could be undermined by Italy’s hesitant backing
for the rebel movement, paving the way for a greater say for French
group Total and maybe British firms.

Britain and France led the drive for intervention in Libya to protect rebels from strongman Muammar Gaddafi.

Italian premier
Silvio Berlusconi, long Gaddafi’s closest European ally, was subdued in
supporting rebels at first, while key coalition partner the Northern
League opposed intervention.

Eni dominance

Eni,present in Libya since the 1950s, is the biggest foreign oil company there,

producing 270,000
boed (barrels of oil equivalent per day) in 2010 . Its contracts are in
force to 2042 for oil production and 2047 for gas.

Early in March,
Scaroni called on Europe to abandon sanctions against Libya, adding
relations with Tripoli had not been hurt and Lybia’s National Oil
Corporation (NOC) was its main interlocutor.

Before the air
strikes, NOC head Shokri Ghanem said Eni’s contracts were safe. Since
then, Ghanem has said Libya was considering offering oil block
contracts directly to China, India and other nations it sees as
friends. “Eni is sitting pretty. The gas pipeline from Libya goes to
Italy and the rebels will need that. They will also need the group’s
oil experience,” said Stefano Casertano, senior fellow at German
think-tank BIGS-Potsdam.org.

At 1510 GMT, Eni shares were up 0.7 percent, with the European oil and gas sector up 0.3 percent.

Reuters