Self Assessment Process

From 2006, the Board of Directors performs every year a self-assessment of size, composition, functioning and activities of the Board and of his Committees, in accordance with Eni's Corporate Governance Code and Borsa Italiana Code of Corporate Governance, that Eni subscribes.
For this purpose the Board of Directors is supported by a specialized consulting firm, to guarantee the maximum objectiveness of its assessment. For three years, Eni also used the same firm to guarantee continuity and homogeneity of analyses too.

Particularly, referring to the fiscal year 2008, the consulting firm work was focused on:

• size and composition, level of functioning and efficiency of the Board;
• identifying areas of improvement or weakness in the functionality and efficacy of the Board;
• efficiency of improvement actions decided after the previous board reviews and the related level of satisfaction of Board members;
• assessing Eni's Board efficiency by benchmarking it against national companies of comparable size, complexity and scope.

Consultants performed an in-depth interview of each member and presented the results to the Board of Directors, that discussed and confirmed them in the meeting of February, 26, 2009, wih a substantially positive review.

The Board indeed confirmed the positive elements and areas of excellence registered in the previous years, in particular:

• efficient size of the Board;
• the transparency in presenting issues to the Board;
• the satisfying level of quantity and quality of information provided;
• excellent relations with top management and their availability to provide information;
• valuable and accurate work performed by committees, in particular the Internal Control Committee.

The Board also expressed its appreciation to the new Oil-gas Energy Committee.
Independent directors expressed interest and availability to provide an even more constructive support to the CEO and Chairman. They consequently held separate meetings for such purpose, as suggested also by the Eni Corporate Governance Code.