Eni SpA said Tuesday it had received approval from Italy’s Environment and Energy Security Ministry to convert several units at the Sannazzaro de’ Burgondi refinery in Pavia into a biorefinery.
The refinery will continue traditional operations alongside a new processing capacity of 550,000 metric tons per annum (MMtpa) for biofuel feedstock, mainly waste and residues. Expected to start operations 2028, the biorefinery will have the flexibility to produce sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) and HVO diesel, the state-backed energy major said in a press release.
“Eni has now started the authorization process and has filed an application for Environmental Impact Assessment”, Eni said.
“The project involves converting the existing Hydrocracker unit using Ecofining™ technology and constructing a pre-treatment unit for waste and residues, which are the main biogenic feedstocks Enilive uses to produce HVO biofuels”, it added. Enilive is Eni’s biofuels arm.
“Hydrogen will be sourced from existing plants, while supporting infrastructure, including logistics, will be adapted for the new operations”, Eni said.
“The new Sannazzaro biorefinery will strengthen the site’s strategic role in supplying traditional jet fuel and SAF to north-west Italian airports, via both the pipeline connection to Milan Malpensa airport and depots connected to the refinery near other airports”, it said.
“Through Enilive, Eni is already the second-largest producer of HVO (Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil) biofuels in Europe, including both diesel and biojet (SAF)”, the company said.
Eni has set goals to grow its biorefining capacity from the current 1.65 million metric tons per annum (MMtpa) to over three million by 2028 and more than five MMtpa by 2030, with the potential to produce up to two MMtpa of SAF by 2030.
Eni’s current biofuels production come from two Italian plants in Venice and Gela and a United States plant in Louisiana, operated under its 50 percent-owned joint venture St Bernard Renewables LLC.
“A third Italian biorefinery is due to come on stream in Livorno in 2026, followed by two plants currently under construction in Malaysia and South Korea; a further biorefinery in Italy has been announced for Priolo, Sicily”, Eni said Tuesday.
Elsewhere Eni earlier this year inaugurated its first vegetable oil extraction plant in the Republic of the Congo, unlocking new feedstock capacity for its biorefineries.
The facility in Loudima, in the southern part of the Central African country, can produce up to 30,000 MMtpa of vegetable oil. The plant will use crops grown on “degraded and underutilized land or through intercropping systems, as part of an innovative regenerative agriculture project developed in collaboration with local stakeholders”, Eni said in a statement June 28.
“With the launch of the Loudima agri-hub, the country takes on an active role in the biofuel production chain, in line with Eni’s strategic path to achieve net zero emissions from its products and processes by 2050”, Eni said.
In May Eni said it had signed an agreement with Cote d’Ivoire’s Agriculture Ministry to explore the potential of cultivating biofuel crops in the West African country.
The memorandum of understanding “aims to enhance the rubber (hevea) supply chain and to assess the introduction of oilseed crops on marginal and degraded lands, thereby contributing to the country’s sustainable agricultural development without competing with food production and forest ecosystem”, Eni said May 28.
Eni said then an existing project in collaboration with the Ivorian Federation of Rubber Producers is already “enabling the valorization of rubber residues – a crop widely cultivated in the country – by transforming them into raw materials for biofuel production, generating economic and social benefits for thousands of farmers”.
Last year Eni launched Eni Natural Energies Cote d’Ivoire, which it said is “dedicated to developing sustainable supply chains of agricultural raw materials for the company’s biorefineries”.
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