Italy’s Eni updates biofuel capacity targets: Update

Italy’s Eni updates biofuel capacity targets: Update

Adds CEO quotes

Barcelona, 18 March (Argus) — Italian integrated oil firm Eni has pushed back its target to double its hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO) production capacity to 2mn t/yr by one year to 2025. After that, the company said capacity will grow at a much faster pace than previously expected.

Speaking at Eni's 2022-25 strategy day, chief executive Claudio Descalzi said the firm's HVO production capacity would increase to "up to 6mn t/yr by 2035". This is compared with a previous target of 5mn t/yr by 2050. Eni currently runs a 650,000 t/yr HVO unit at Gela in Sicily and a 350,000 t/yr plant at Venice.

The company said the 2025 capacity target would be accomplished by "the expansion of the Venice plant and another traditional refinery conversion". The firm has been mulling the conversion of its 84,000 b/d Livorno refinery since the end of 2020. According to Argus tracking, there have been no crude deliveries to Livorno since the end of December. Unions said previously that Livorno would halt crude distillation this year. They met with Eni to discuss a possible conversion of Livorno this month.

The delay in increasing capacity to 2mn t/yr was because the firm "needed time to select