Eni has launched the authorisation process for the Environmental Impact Assessment (VIA) to transform its industrial site in Priolo, Sicily. In recent days, 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.
The project will 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 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, the project includes a biogenic feedstock pre-treatment unit and a plant for the production of hydrogen.
The Priolo biorefinery 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.
The Versalis Hoop® plant will 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. In June 2025 a Hoop® demo plant was commissioned at the Versalis plant in Mantua; the Priolo facility will be the first at industrial scale. This technology, which complements mechanical recycling, transforms mixed plastic waste into raw material for the production of new plastic products suitable for all applications, including food contact and pharmaceutical packaging.
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. This is 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 formalised 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.
Source: Eni
