ANGOLA – Italian multinational oil and gas company Eni has revealed its plans to establish an “agro bio” business, an agro-industrial complex that will focus on large-scale production of vegetable oil in Angola starting next year.
The announcement was made by Guido Brusco, the company’s Natural Resources Director at the Angola Oil & Gas conference held in Luanda.
Brusco revealed that the company has already identified an area to implement the project, with gains for the economic diversification process adopted by the Government.
“Eni is moving forward with a new business, producing agro and bio-raw materials in Angola. We are already preparing the planting campaign that will begin in the coming months and we have already identified the area for the construction of the first industrial complex of the country”, Brusco told RNA.
According to Brusco, the move marks the start of a transport and logistic system that will support the edible oil value chain in the country, with an initial capacity of 20,000 tonnes.
The move follows Eni’s achievement in Kenya after transporting its first cargo of vegetable oil biorefining in its Gela biorefinery in Italy.
In Kenya, Eni launched the agrobio project in 2021, after the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding with the Kenyan institutions to oversee the construction of agri-hubs in different parts of the country.
Eni Kenya afterword reported that its Makueni agri-hub which opened in July 2022 is already operational in processing castor, croton, and cotton seeds and has already shipped its first cargo of vegetable oil for biorefining.
“Just three months after the start-up of the Makueni agri-hub, we have exported the first cargo of vegetable oil for the biorefineries, through a vertical integration model that enables the promotion of sustainable local development while valorizing the supply chain for biofuels production,” said Claudio Descalzi, Eni’s Chief Executive Officer.
In addition to vegetable oil, Eni Kenya revealed plans to export the Used Cooking Oil (UCO) collected from hotel chains, restaurants, and bars in Nairobi, through a project already underway.
According to Eni, the project envisioned promoting the culture of recycling, raising awareness of the environmental and health benefits that derive from the proper disposal of waste oil, and generating income from waste.
Eni’s initiatives in the agro-industrial chain are currently running in Kenya Congo, Mozambique, Angola, Ivory Coast, Benin, Rwanda, and Kazakhstan.
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