Enilive – a subsidiary of Italian energy multinational Eni – has awarded engineering firm Saipem a contract to expand its sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) biorefinery in Porto Marghera, near Venice.
The €155M (US$182M) contract included engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) activities at the site, Saipem said on 24 June.
The award was part of a recently renewed biorefining agreement between the two companies and followed Eni’s assignment to Saipem of a contract for the start of preliminary detailed engineering activities, procurement services and purchase of critical equipment for the same project, announced in March.
As part of its plans to expand the company’s biorefining capacity from the current 1.65M tonnes/year to more than 5M tonnes/year by 2030, Eni has converted two petroleum refineries – in Venice Porto Marghera and Gela, Sicily – into biorefineries to process waste feedstocks, such as used cooking oil (UCO), animal fats, agro-food industry residues and vegetable oils, using Ecofining technology. Saipem provided support on both projects.
The Porto Marghera project involved increasing the plant’s capacity from the current 400,000 tonnes/year to 600,000 tonnes/year and the start of SAF production from 2027.
According to its website, Saipem designs, builds and operates onshore and offshore plants in the energy and infrastructure sectors.
