Italian oil and gas firm Eni has announced its plan to invest €7bn in several projects including renewables and oil and gas, over the next four years in the country.
Of the total committed amount, the firm plans to invest €1bn for green activities, including research and development expenditure for the decarbonisation process.
Eni CEO Claudio Descalzi said: “In 2017 we confirmed our record performance in terms of safety with 0.33 cases per million hours worked (Total Recordable Injury Rate), a 7% improvement compared with 2016.
“In terms of our environmental performance, we reduced the emissions intensity of our upstream activities by 3% compared with 2016 and by 15% compared with 2014, making significant progress towards the target of a 43% reduction by 2025 compared with 2014.”
Presenting the company’s 2018-2021 Strategic Plan to the Italian financial community, Descalzi discussed about a new industrial requalification initiative, Progetto Italia, which involves creation of facilities for the production of renewable energy on some of Eni’s reclaimed industrial sites.
For the scheme, Eni has identified 25 projects with a total potential capacity of 220MW, which is equal to 0.4 terawatt/hours per year of electricity. The projects are planned to be commissioned in 2021.
Descalzi added: “From 2009 to 2017, we spent €1.7bn on research and development, building a portfolio of technologies in a wide range of areas, in the upstream and downstream sectors, as well as in renewables, environmental protection and safety, with a total of over 6,000 patents. Over the course of the next Plan we will spend more than €750m.”
Descalzi noted that the firm will focus on research mainly in solar power, energy storage, advanced biofuels, biomass and wind power, and in the development of technologies for the production of energy from nuclear fusion.
Additionally, in the downstream sector, the company intends to focus on the research into products and processes with a low environmental impact.