It's a nightmare Tuesday for Saipem's stock market. At the start of the session, the shares of the plant engineering company of the Eni group failed to make a price, then they were admitted to trading with a red of more than seven percentage points, at 10,43 euros. This is the worst fall of the Ftse Mib. The share of the parent company, on the other hand, travels in positive territory of 0,45%, at 10,43 euros.
To sink the Saipem stock is the news that the South Stream pipeline, which was supposed to connect Europe and Russia directly, will no longer be implemented. L'goodbye to the project was announced last night by Vladimir Putin, Russian president, and by Alexei Miller, number one of Gazprom, the oil giant which owns 50% of the joint venture for the construction of the gas pipeline. The other partners were Italian Eni (at 20%), the French EDF and the German group Wintershall (both at 15%).
Saipem had already started working on the South Stream submarine section, by virtue of three contracts, the last of which – the richest, worth two billion dollars – was awarded last March. The pipes, freshly assembled and ready to be laid on the bottom of the Black Sea, had set sail just two days ago from Bulgaria to Russia. Moscow has so far been punctual in payments and certainly the contracts provide for substantial penalties in the event of non-compliance. But for Saipem the backlash on the markets was in any case inevitable.
