MOSCOW (MRC) -- Italy's Eni plans to deepen its involvement in Nigeria's energy sector, increasing oil and gas exploration and helping to restore one of the country's ailing refineries, said Reuters.
Eni Chief Executive Claudio Descalzi and Emmanuele Ibe Kachikwu, Nigeria's Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, met in Rome this week to sign several memorandum of understanding (MOU) agreements to "further strengthen" Eni's involvement in Nigeria.
Eni said it will "intensify" oil and gas exploration, including at onshore sites and help the Petroleum Ministry rehabilitate the Port Harcourt oil refinery, part of Nigeria's goal to lessen its reliance on imported oil products.
It also plans to press forward with long-standing plans to double power generation capacity at the 480 megawatt Okpai Independent Power Plant (IPP) in Delta state, which was built by Eni's local subsidiary Nigerian Agip Oil Company.
As MRC informed earlier, Eni announced that it could not reach an agreement with the US private equity firm SK Capital to sell a majority stake in ENI’s chemicals subsidiary Versalis (Milan) and has terminated the discussions.
Eni is an Italian multinational oil and gas company headquartered in Rome. It has operations in in 79 countries, and is currently Italy's largest industrial company with a market capitalization of EUR68 billion (USD 90 billion), as of August 14, 2013. The Italian government owns a 30.3% golden share in the company, 3.93% held through the state Treasury and 26.37% held through the Cassa depositi e prestiti. Another 39.40% of the shares are held by BNP Paribas.
MRC