SOLUTIONS FOR THE OIL
AND GAS INDUSTRY GE Oil & Gas (Nuovo Pignone) has experienced outstanding growth since 1994, when Italian company Nuovo Pignone was acquired by American multinational General Electric. Since then the Oil & Gas division has become increasingly important for the American giant, as Barbara Rossi learns.
G
eneral Electric, set up in 1878 by Thomas A. Edison, is today a multinational company operating in a wide range of sectors, ranging from energy to financial services, medical diagnostics imagery, aero engines, television programmes and plastic materials. Its aim is that of producing technologically innovative solutions to solve the most complex problems encountered in daily life, and in this endeavour the group operates in 100 countries, employing 300,000 people. GE has been present in Italy since 1992, where it operates through four macro-divisions, with 15 sites and 7000 employees, and has invested €70 million in R&D in the country. Nuovo Pignone also has a long history, as it was established in Florence in 1842 as a cast-iron foundry, called Pignone. In the early 1900s it started producing reciprocat-
112 Industry Europe
