Italy's Eni, the largest foreign oil operator in the country made contact with the Transitional National Council in early April in an effort to secure its future in a post-Qadhafi Libya. Before Italy's recognition of the opposition on April 4th, there were concerns that the position of Italian companies could be threatened by their government's seeming reluctance to support the revolution. Eni was producing about 280,000 b/d of oil equivalent before the outbreak of violence and had US$2.5bn worth of net capital employed in upstream activities as of end-2010. In 2007 Eni, which operates in the west of the country and is Libya's only gas offtaker, signed a US$28bn deal extending its oil and gas supply contracts to 2042 and 2047 respectively.