The Company began operations in the 1950s. During the 50s and 60s it accumulated competencies in onshore pipelaying, plant construction and drilling, operating initially as a division of the Eni group and then on a stand-alone basis, becoming definitively autonomous in 1969. Offshore operations commenced in the Mediterranean in the early 1960s and expanded to the North Sea in 1972.

Saipem is now a world leader in the oil & gas contracting services sector, both onshore and offshore.