Enrico Mattei was a leading figure in post-war Italy who went down in history for relaunching the Italian petroleum agency Agip, founded by Benito Mussolini, into state oil giant ENI (National Fuel Trust). A partisan leader and a Christian Democracy (Democrazia Cristiana) MP, he turned ENI into a global player that broke up the oligopoly of the world’s largest energy companies dominated by the UK, the US, the Netherlands, France, and Belgium. Mattei secured ENI contracts across the Middle East, the Gulf, and Africa, treating countries as equals with 50/50 cuts of their profits from oil. As a r…