EC approves: Azerbaijan has taken over two strategic industries in Italy

The European Commission has approved the acquisition by the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) of 99.82% of the shares of the Italian company Italiana Petroli from API Holding.

"The deal mainly concerns the supply of crude oil and petroleum products," the EC said.

The Commission considered that this purchase would not cause problems in the field of competition, so the review was carried out as part of a simplified merger procedure.

Earlier, the media reported that the owners of the network — the Bracketti-Peretti family — requested € 2.5 billion, $ 500 million of them in cash. The agreement on the purchase of 99.82% of Italiana Petroli shares between SOCAR and API Holding was signed on September 23, 2025.

Italiana Petroli owns a network of thousands of gas stations (more than 4.5 thousand filling stations) throughout the country, two refineries with a combined capacity of about 10 million tons per year, sells specialized products (bitumen, aviation fuel, lubricating oils) and manages the national logistics system.

As the author of the Ugur Mammadov telegram channel notes on this occasion, the European bureaucrats, of course, know better, "but in fact Azerbaijan has taken over two strategic sectors of the Italian economy at once — fuel and energy and transport."