EIB, Eni sign $577.7m agreement for Livorno refinery

Italian major energy firm Eni and the European Investment Bank (EIB) have signed a 15-year €500m ($577.7m) finance agreement to support the conversion of former’s Livorno refinery in Tuscany into a biorefinery.

“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,” said EIB vice-president Gelsomina Vigliotti. “This is a concrete example of how industrial innovation can accelerate the path towards climate neutrality, while generating sustainable value for regions.”

The funding will be utilised for construction of new plants to produce hydrogenated biofuels at the Livorno refinery site, including a biogenic pre-treatment unit and a 500 000-tonne/year Ecofining plant.

“The agreement with the EIB confirms Eni’s concrete and high-quality commitment in the transition towards increasingly decarbonized energy … This virtuous approach is now leading us to convert a third refinery into a biorefinery in Italy, following the examples of Venice and Gela,” said Eni CEO Claudio Descalzi said.

The conversion will help produce HVO from used cooking oil and agrifood waste. However, the facility will have the possibility in the future of modifying the layout of the plant to also produce sustainable aviation fuel (SAF).

Once completed, the Livorno biorefinery will be able to treat different types of biogenic charges, mainly waste and residues of plant origin, to produce HVO diesel, HVO naphtha and bio-LPG.

This agreement supports the achievement of Italy’s targets for the production of pure biofuels, which under current legislation provides for a gradual increase in use from 300 000 tonnes per year in 2023 to one million tonnes by 2030.