Chemical nostalgia: from Montedison to Eni’s Novamont via Sir
Novamont’s transfer to ENI through Versalis is not a simple financial and industrial transaction. It is the recomposition of the great Italian chemistry in its history full of lights and too many shadows. Wanting to synthesize in an extreme way, we can say that the operation quietly reconstructs the National Chemical Pole that had been talked about throughout the 1980s.
His birth under the initials Enimont had to end the chemical warfare that had opposed the Montedison sponsored by Henry Cuccia at the Sir raised under the patronage of IMI. As an outsider the Liquigas from whose insurance rib (the Sai) the Ligresti phenomenon would have been born.
The public outpost, certainly no stranger to the clash, was represented by theAnic owned by Eni. Those were the times of Eugenio Cefis, Nino Rovelli, Raffaele Ursini. Myth and hell of Italian industry. Darkness and corruption. All these threads were knotted with the birth of Enimont which in all these years has been talked about more for the judicial implications than for the financial and industrial values. Versalis is the direct heir of Enimont. He absorbed all of Italy’s petrochemicals after the unfortunate alliance between Raul Gardini’s Montedison and Enichem broke up. He has a new name just to give the sign of radical change.
The purchase of Novamont mends the history of Italian petrochemicals with its roots
Novamont, in fact, is today one of the world leaders in bioplastics, but the first plastics that weren’t bio at all were born in its laboratories. The center of gravity is represented by the laboratories of theDonegani Institute of Novara dove Julius Natta he had perfected polymer technology. Plastic as we know it as a petroleum derivative was born from that research. An Italian excellence that unfortunately has been lost. Montedison in trouble in the 70s had sold the patents, losing the record.
The Guido Donegani Institute of Novara at the end of the eighties was part of the Montedison dell’it was Ferruzzi. When Enimont was established, Gardini decided to keep a small research unit in Montedison which was called Fertec (Ferruzzi Research and Technologies) with the aim of developing the use of agricultural raw materials in chemistry. Under the guidance of Amilcare Colli former president of Donegani, many initiatives were launched including starch-based biodegradable paper, Mater-Bi, a biodegradable polymer, biodiesel, the production of which was started in a subsidiary in Livorno.
Over the years, Fertec has gone through a thousand difficulties
Then the liquidation of Montedison, in 1996, led to the change of ownership and the new life with the label Novamont. Not for this, however, the company has escaped the controversy. In 2018 the obligation of bio-plastic shopping bags lit the fires against the CEO Catia Bastioli who in 2011 had participated in one of the very first editions of Renzi’s convention at the Leopolda. That norm, imposed by a European rule, was instrumentally considered a gift.
But in the history of the company there are also more smiling episodes. Like the event organized by Carlos Sama, who had replaced Gardini at the helm of Montedison. To demonstrate the value of Mater-Bi, the bio-plastic produced in Novara he had a small Mickey Mouse puppet made and buried it with great ceremony announcing that over time it would disappear absorbed into the ground.
No one knows exactly how the experiment ended. The fact remains that Fertec, renamed Novamont, has kept its roots with Montedison in its name. For better or for worse, a cornerstone of Italian industry. Who knows if the new property will keep the name or, given the previous ones, will want to delete any reference to the past. Another shattered nostalgia.