How an Oil Giant Tries to Thrive in Chaos
Eni has dominated Libya’s energy industry for six decades. Its future there now hangs in the balance.
Fighters loyal to the Libyan internationally-recognised Government of National Accord near Tripoli.
Photographer: Mahmud Turkia/AFP via Getty ImagesThis article is for subscribers only.
The week the Libyan uprising began in 2011 was one like any other for workers at Italian oil company Eni SpA in the North African country. They played soccer and watched movies, oblivious to the battles with police and mounting deaths in the revolution that toppled Muammar Qaddafi.
Reality only sunk in for former Eni engineer Ahmed Sheikhi five months later when he returned home from the Mellitah Oil & Gas complex in western Libya. “I felt as though I had been in another country,” he said.