Enrico Mattei
Italian public administrator
Died when: 56 years 181 days (677 months)Star Sign: Taurus
Enrico Mattei (Italian pronunciation: [en'ri?ko mat't?i]; 29 April 1906 – 27 October 1962) was an Italian public administrator. After World War II he was given the task of dismantling the Italian petroleum agency Agip, a state enterprise established by the Fascist regime.
Instead Mattei enlarged and reorganized it into the National Fuel Trust (Italian: Ente Nazionale Idrocarburi, ENI). Under his direction ENI negotiated important oil concessions in the Middle East as well as a significant trade agreement with the Soviet Union, which helped break the oligopoly of the "Seven Sisters" that dominated the mid-20th-century oil industry.
He also introduced the principle whereby the country that owned exploited oil reserves received 75% of the profits. Mattei, who became a powerful figure in Italy, was a Christian Democrat, and a member of Parliament from 1948 to 1953.
Mattei made ENI a powerful company, so much so that Italians called it "the state within the state". He died in a plane crash in 1962, likely caused by a bomb in the plane, although it has never been established which group might have been responsible for his death.
The unsolved death of Mattei was the subject of an award-winning film The Mattei Affair by Francesco Rosi in 1972, with Mattei portrayed by Gian Maria Volonté.
