Italian government poised to back new mandate for Eni CEO, sources say

MILAN, Jan 14 (Reuters) - Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is poised to back Eni CEO Claudio Descalzi for a new three-year term at the energy group, three sources close to the matter said, paving the way for the top executive to extend his reign as the company's longest-serving head.

Descalzi, 70, has been Eni ENI.MI chief executive since 2014, having built a career in the group as an upstream and exploration expert with a deep knowledge of Africa.

The executive is available to serve for another term, one of the sources said.

Meloni's administration, which controls the group with a total stake of nearly 32%, will call the shots at Eni's shareholder meeting in early May, when investors are due to vote for the appointment of the management team.

"These are decisions that are up to our shareholders, and therefore we do not comment on them," a spokesman for Eni said.

The prime minister's office was not available to comment.

Italian media and Bloomberg newswire have also reported that the government is preparing to reconfirm Descalzi at the helm of the energy group.

After helping Rome to replace Russian gas supplies in reaction to Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, Descalzi has masterminded the creation of low-carbon divisions at the oil and gas group and supervised the opening up of these ventures to infrastructure funds and investment companies.

This move has allowed Eni to share the financial effort needed to develop biofuel venture Enilive, retail and renewable unit Plenitude and Eni's carbon capture business with deep-pocketed global partners.

These include U.S. investment firm KKR KKR.N, Swiss asset manager Energy Infrastructure Partners, Ares Management and BlackRock's BLK.N infrastructure fund GIP.

One of the challenges for the 52-billion euro group and its top management in the next three years will be to support growth at its new units and make sure that returns promised to the investment partners are delivered, analysts said.