By Stephanie Daniels
Energy Window International (Media) – Eni said it has launched what it called the “authorization” process for the Environmental Impact Assessment (VIA) to transform its industrial site in Priolo, Sicily. Just recently, as Energy Window International (Media) learnt, the Italian Ministry of the Environment and Energy Security approved the application to proceed with the construction of a biorefinery and a chemical recycling plant based on Versalis’ proprietary Hoop technology.
EWI Publishers gathered that the project would make use of the area currently occupied by Versalis’ ethylene plant, which will be gradually decommissioned, along with an adjacent area used for site services. The company further said that the new biorefinery will have a production capacity of 500,000 tonnes per year, fed mainly by residues and waste of vegetable origin, animal fats and vegetable oils. In addition to the Ecofining plant is a biogenic feedstock pre-treatment unit and a plant for the production of hydrogen.
The Priolo biorefinery according to Eni will be the second in Sicily, after the Gela plant, in operation since 2019, and will produce HVO diesel for road, marine and rail transport, as well as SAF-biojet for the aviation sector, with maximum flexibility. Completion is scheduled by the end of 2028.
EWI Publishers has also learnt that the Versalis Hoop plant would employ the company’s proprietary technology for chemical recycling, based on the pyrolysis of mixed plastic packaging waste. It will have a processing capacity of 40,000 tonnes per year and will produce around 32,000 tonnes per year of pyrolysis oil. Recalling that in June 2025, a Hoop demo plant was commissioned at the Versalis plant in Mantua, the first of its kind at industrial scale. According to Eni, the technology will complement mechanical recycling, transform mixed plastic waste into raw material for the production of new plastic products suitable for all applications, including food contact and pharmaceutical packaging.
Eni said that Hoop originated from a joint project with the Italian engineering company S.R.S. (Servizi di Ricerche e Sviluppo) leading to the development of an innovative technology with high material recovery yields and broad flexibility with respect to feedstock input, a process which was made possible by combining a high-performance pyrolysis reactor with advanced expertise in polymer property measurement and process optimisation using Artificial Intelligence.
The plan to transform the Priolo industrial site, announced in October 2024 and formalized in March 2025 by an agreement signed at the Ministry of Enterprises and Made in Italy (MIMIT), confirms the decarbonisation objectives of Eni and its subsidiaries, Eni said.