Eni will convert Livorno refinery into renewable fuel production facility

The European Investment Bank (EIB) and Eni have signed a EUR 500 million 15-year finance contract to support the conversion of Eni's Livorno refinery in Tuscany, Italy, into a biorefinery. The facility will be able to treat different types of biogenic charges, mainly waste and residues of plant origin, to produce bioLPG, HVO diesel and HVO naphtha.

The project involves the construction of new plants to produce the biofuels at the Livorno refinery site, including a biogenic pre-treatment unit and a 500,000-tonne/year Ecofining plant. This will be Eni's third biorefinery in Italy, after those in Venice and Gela.

EIB Vice-President Gelsomina Vigliotti said: “The EIB financing is key to delivering a project of high environmental, technological and strategic value, helping to promote the decarbonisation of the transport sector. This is a concrete example of how industrial innovation can accelerate the path towards climate neutrality, while generating sustainable value for regions.”

Eni CEO Claudio Descalzi added: “The agreement with the EIB confirms Eni’s concrete and high-quality commitment in the transition towards increasingly decarbonised energy. It also underscores the validity of our approach, which is to invest and leverage all available and effective initiatives and technologies for reducing emissions. This virtuous approach is now leading us to convert a third refinery into a biorefinery in Italy, following the examples of Venice and Gela.”

Among the distinctive features of the project, in addition to the use of advanced technologies, there is the possibility of adapting the plant to also produce SAF (sustainable aviation fuel) in the future.

According to EIB, this operation is part of the energy transition at national and European level, contributing substantially to decarbonisation of the transport sector and the reduction of CO2 emissions.

Source: EIB

Photo: EIB