Eni S.p.A. (Rome, Italy) and the Ministry of Petroleum and Mining of Kenya signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to promote the decarbonization process to tackle climate change through new industrial models of fully-integrated circular economy along the whole bio-fuel production value chain.
The parties will jointly conduct feasibility studies to develop waste and residue collection as well as agricultural projects, with the purpose of establishing a wide range of feedstock sources that do not compete with food cycles, to be transformed into bio-fuels and bio-products that might contribute to feed Eni’s bio-refineries in Gela and Venice, Italy. The parties will also assess the opportunity of converting Mombasa refinery into a bio-refinery, as well as the construction of a new plant for second-generation bio-ethanol from waste biomass, leveraging on Eni technologies Ecofining e Proesa.
The agricultural development project focuses on the development of sustainable oil crop cultivations – namely, low ILUC (indirect land use change) feedstock such as cover crops, castor in degraded lands, croton trees in agro-forestry systems and other agro-industrial co-products.
The waste and residue collection would be focused to promote and implement a collection system for used cooked oil (UCO) and of other agro-processing residues.
This initiative will contribute to diversifying Kenya’s energy mix and supporting the overall de-carbonization process, while also decreasing the Country’s dependence from imports of petroleum products. Other expected benefits include developing sustainable agricultural activities and circular economy, producing power from renewable sources, fostering the economic competitiveness of the local industry and creating new jobs.