page_title: Saipem
section_title: Early history
hierarchical_section_title: Saipem / History / Early history
caption_attribution_description: English: Castoro Sei semi-submersible on station in the Baltic Sea south-east of Gotland (Sweden) whilst pipe-laying for Nord Stream.
context_page_description: Saipem S.p.A. is an Italian multinational oilfield services company and one of the largest in the world. Until 2016 it was a subsidiary of Italian oil and gas supermajor Eni, which still retains approximately 30% of Saipem's shares.
context_section_description: The history of Saipem is deeply connected to Enrico Mattei's management era of Eni during the years of the Italian economic miracle. In the early 1950s Mattei had reorganized the Italian oil industry through a complex system of outright acquisitions and government investments, in order to guarantee Italy's self-reliance in energy. 
  At first, Mattei focused on natural gas, the only abundant source of energy available in mainland Italy, through Snam, a newly formed gas pipelines company. In the late 1950s, Eni's subsidiary Snam came to head two sub-holdings: Snam Montaggi, created in 1955 to build pipelines and drilling platforms, and Snam Progetti, created in 1956, specializing in tankers. In 1957 drilling company Saip, a subsidiary of Agip (Eni's fuel retailer), was merged with Snam Montaggi to create Saipem.
  Saipem was a pioneer in offshore drilling and pipelines construction in Europe; in 1959 it started drilling oil off the coast of Gela, in Sicily and the in the early 1960s initiated the Central European Line pipeline, running from the port of Genoa to West Germany, where Eni Deutschland subsidiary was building refineries in Ingolstadt. In addition, in 1961 Saipem built a 1,140 km long oil pipeline in India and a gas pipeline in Iraq.
caption: The semi-submersible pipe-laying vessel Castoro Sei operating for Nord Stream in the Baltic Sea south-east of Gotland, Sweden in late March 2011.
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