In July 2021 Eni and the Ministry of Petroleum and Mining of Kenya signed a Memorandum of Understanding 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 to build a new plant to produce second-generation bio-ethanol from waste biomass, leveraging Eni technologies Ecofining™ e Proesa®. The agricultural development project focuses on the development of sustainable oil crop cultivations and other agro-industrial co-products.
Just a few months after the agreement, we have supplied castor beans to about 25,000 beneficiaries and started collecting croton and cotton seeds, while one year after the agreement with the institutions, in July 2022 we started vegetable oil production from the first agri-hub in Wote. In Kenya Eni is also collecting used cooking oil (UCO), basically fried oil, involving fast food restaurant chains, restaurants and hotels. In Kenya, development program includes the construction of 20 agrihubs. The plan also includes the study for the conversion of the Mombasa refinery into a biorefinery for HVO and SAF production.
