Italy: Two-Timing the Seven Sisters

Not long after he took over Italy's giant state-owned petroleum monopoly E.N.I, last fall, scholarly Marcello Boldrini, 73, closed a deal to buy crude oil from Esso. His move spurred speculation that E.N.I, might be turning away from its Russian oil suppliers to resume a romance with the "seven sisters"-the name that his predecessor, the late Enrico Mattei, used to describe the big Western-owned oil companies. Last week, after Boldrini returned home from a week's visit in Moscow, it was clear that E.N.I, intends to keep right on doing business with the...

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