BRUSSELS—
Paolo Scaroni also said the company plans to raise around euro1.5 billion from selling off shares in three gas pipelines in order to settle a European Union antitrust dispute.
He told reporters that the company won't prolong contracts it signed in 2001 to develop two Iranian gas fields. Iran has the world's second largest gas resources after Russia and has ignored global pressure to drop its nuclear program.
"We will continue to abstain (from signing new contracts) in the future," Scaroni told reporters.
Italy has long enjoyed strong commercial ties with Iran. But Italian President Silvio Berlusconi called for tighter sanctions against Iran on Tuesday and said Italian companies have cut business ties with Iran by a third since 2007.
The Italian government owns about 30 percent of ENI.
Scaroni spoke after talks with EU officials where ENI offered to sell shares in the Trans Austrian Gas, or TAG, TENP and Transitgas pipelines that transport Russian and Dutch gas across Germany, Austria and Switzerland into Italy.
He said the pipelines would be bought by the Italian state investment arm Cassa Depositi e Prestiti, or CDP because the government sees them as crucial to the economy for importing some 30 percent of Italy's gas.
He said ENI had no plans for the money it would raise which "won't change our balance sheet."
EU officials said offloading the shares would eliminate their concerns that the company has a conflict of interest because it controls the transport, supply and sale of gas.
They will check with rivals and customers whether the sale would benefit fair competition before moving to make ENI's offer legally binding -- which will end the antitrust probe and the threat of fines that can run as high as 10 percent of annual turnover.
The EU said the sale would be "a major step towards facilitating competition in Italian gas markets to the benefit of gas customers at the same time as increasing security of supply."
The European Commission alleges that ENI abused a dominant market position to prevent rivals using the pipelines when there was "very significant" demand for gas between 2000 and 2005.
It said these practices may have weakened competitors and harmed customers in Italy. It also says ENI deliberately underinvested in the pipelines to limit the amount of gas on the Italian market in order to keep prices high.
ENI is Italy's biggest oil and gas company. It sells gas directly to customers and also transports gas into Italy for its own supplies and for rivals.
Worried about Europe's growing dependence on Russian gas, the EU executive said ENI's actions -- especially its lack of investment in pipelines -- may have hurt Italy's access to gas supplies by creating a bottleneck on imports.
This made Italy more dependent on ENI for the gas that heats homes and fuels power plants -- and its choices of where it buys gas, it said.
Berlusconi is one of the few EU leaders to have a warm relationship with Russia and its president Vladimir Putin. Italy relies heavily on imported gas, mostly from Russia and ENI works closely with Russian state gas monopoly OAO Gazprom.
