The CEO of Eni, Claudio Descalzi, and the CEO of Snam, Stefano Venier, today signed an agreement through which Eni and Snam, in an equal joint venture, will collaborate in the development and management of Phase 1 of the Ravenna Project CO2 capture and storage (CCS).
The agreement also provides for the continuation of studies and preparatory activities for subsequent development phases. Phase 1 of the Ravenna CCS Project involves the capture of 25,000 tonnes of CO2 from Eni’s natural gas treatment plant in Casalborsetti (Ravenna). Once captured, the CO2 will be conveyed to the Porto Corsini Mare Ovest platform and finally injected into the depleted gas field of the same name, offshore Ravenna.
Eni’s CEO Claudio Descalzi commented: “Today more than ever the need to reconcile decarbonisation, energy security and competitiveness objectives emerges, and creating a system becomes a priority. This agreement represents an example of excellence, aimed at enhancing industrial synergies to contribute to the decarbonisation process of the Italian production system. The first phase of the Ravenna Project will make it possible to reduce emissions from the Casalborsetti plant, launching a project in Italy based on a mature and essential technological process for achieving climate objectives, complementary to renewables, energy efficiency and other available levers, and is central to avoiding CO2 emissions from highly energy-intensive sectors that currently have no technological alternatives for decarbonisation”.
Snam’s CEO Stefano Venier said: “It is a fact that Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technologies are maturing globally as a tool available to achieve decarbonisation objectives and for this reason it is at the heart of the attention from governments, investors and industrial operators. CCS projects are being developed globally and are already in an advanced stage of definition both in Europe – especially in the United Kingdom, Holland and the Nordic countries – and in the United States. With this joint venture, the first initiative was born in Italy that has the ambition of offering a solution to the entire hard-to-abbot production cluster of the Po Valley and potentially also of other Italian regions and other countries bordering the Mediterranean basin. Snam will contribute to the project with its know-how and its distinctive skills in the transport and management of molecules, in this case those of CO2.”
The project represents a fundamental element in responding to the decarbonisation needs of steel mills, cement factories, the ceramic and chemical industries and more generally of the “hard to abate” sectors through an immediately available, highly efficient and effective technological process, which allows to enhance the infrastructures and skills already present in the area. The planned activities will make it possible to create new job opportunities, with an overall estimate of over 500 new jobs in the first phase of the project alone.
The important role of CCS in strategies to combat climate change is confirmed by the analyzes of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC) and the International Agency of the Agency (IEA) which in their latest reports confirm the capture, use and CO2 storage as one of the “essential” solutions for achieving the decarbonisation objectives to combat climate change. Eni and Snam are related parties. Both companies have applied their own internal procedure on the matter.