OREANDA-NEWS. March 16, 2015. Italy's Eni cut its dividend and suspended a share buyback programme on Friday as part of moves to offset the slump in oil prices and fund growth in its core business of looking for oil and gas.

In the first major business plan of CEO Claudio Descalzi, Italy's biggest listed company said it would pay a 2015 dividend of 0.8 euros per share compared to the 1.12 euros per share it paid on 2014 results.

The state-controlled oil major said it would cut investments by 17 percent in the 2015-2018 period to around 48 billion euros (\\$50 billion) and sell assets worth 8 billion euros.

At 1437 GMT Eni shares were down more than 6 percent.

The slump in oil prices since June is testing the ability of listed oil companies to support cash flows and has sparked a rush to cut costs across the sector.

Many big oil firms have announced cuts of 10 to 15 percent to their spending budgets and some have suspended share buybacks or revived dividend payment via company stock, known as scrip shares.

Eni, which is shifting its focus increasingly to upstream exploration and production activity, said it was targeting annual output growth of 3.5 percent, up from the 3 percent growth in its previous 2014-2017 plan.