Saipem S.p.A. (Società Anonima Italiana Perforazioni E Montaggi lit. Drilling and Assembly Italian Public Limited Company) 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 retains approximately 30% of Saipem's shares. History Early history 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 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. 1970s-1990s In 1978, Saipem laid down Castoro Sei, a column stabilized semi-submersible pipelay vessel. In the same year Sapiem was commissioned the construction of IGAT-2 pipeline in Iran. About 80 per cent of the line had been completed by 1985, when the works had to be halted because of the Iran-Iraq war. In 1983, Saipem completed the construction of the massive Trans-Mediterranean Pipeline, linking Algeria to Italy. In 1988, a joint venture between Saipem and Brown & Root was formed, known as European Marine Contractors, that realized two major projects: Zeepipe, completed in 1993, a 1,416 km natural gas transportation system to transport North Sea natural gas to the receiving terminal at Zeebrugge in Belgium; and a 707 km trunkline connecting Hong Kong with Yancheng 13-1 gasfield, located in the Yinggehai Basin, completed in 1994. In 199,1 Saipem started operating Saipem 7000, the world's