MILAN (Reuters) -Italian energy group Eni said on Thursday it would invest 2 billion euros ($2.2 billion) in five years to decarbonise and relaunch its loss-making chemicals business Versalis.
“Eni aims to significantly reduce Versalis’ exposure to basic chemicals, a sector that is facing structural and irreversible decline in Europe,” the group said in a statement, adding that the unit had suffered losses of nearly 7 billion euros over the past 15 years.
Versalis will be reorganised around several activities comprising biochemicals, downstream, circularity and, in a reduced form, basic chemicals.
To enable the construction of new industrial sites, activity at Eni’s cracking plants in Brindisi and Priolo and a
polyethylene plant in Ragusa – all in economically depressed southern Italy – will be phased out, the group said.
It pledged to set up new plants dedicated to sustainable chemistry, biorefining and energy storage.
The restructuring aims to reduce emissions by approximately 1 million tonnes of CO2, currently around 40% of Versalis’ emissions in Italy, Eni said.
($1 = 0.9264 euros)
(Reporting by Francesca Landini, editing by Gianluca Semeraro and Gavin Jones)
