Kucove is an industrial town that shows traces of the Italian influence since the early 1920s, a period during which the scientific research on oil in Albania began to give the first results. 
In 1935 the AIPA (Italian Company Petroli Albanesi) obtained an important concession for the oil research and extraction in the central region of Albania, and it was in Kucove that the best results were obtained. With the Italian occupation during fascism, in 1939 Kucove was renamed “Petrolia, oil city”: the town was enlarged by Italian workers and converted to an industrial site to maximize its extractions and became an important center for our country. However, despite initial agreements for the construction of refineries for oil treatment and processing, the plants were never built and the flock extracted was transported to Italy.
With the advent of communism in Albania and the outbreak of the Second World War, the AIPA withdrew and the city was renamed “City of Stalin” and became a military quarter. Only in 1990 with the fall of the communism, Kucove returned to its original name, and every symbol of the regime was removed. 
The oil extraction in Kucove continues today: in the gardens of the houses and on the edges of the roads, the Italian plants of the last century are active and crystallized over time.