Sicily signs 'green' deal with Italian energy giant

By John Phillips

ROME

Italian energy giant Eni has reached an agreement with trade unions and Sicilian authorities to turn its refinery in the town of Gela "green" and produce biofuel as part of a deal to save 3,000 jobs.  

 Federica Guidi, the Italian Minister of Economic Development, and the management of Eni’s refinery in Gela reached the agreement on Thursday night over the future of the 60-year-old refinery, which refines crude oil sent from Libya across the Mediterranean along the Libyan-Italy pipeline.

"Deal done with Eni in Gela. The refinery will become green. Saved all the jobs," tweeted Enrico Romagna Manoja, a spokesman for Guidi.

 The agreement consists of the conversion of the Sicilian refinery in Gela which will become one of Italy’s major producers of biofuel.

The full investment amounts to €2 billion ($2.5 billion) and saves from redundancy all employees involved in the project agreed in Rome, which is the biggest green-energy project ever undertaken in Italy. 

- 'Outstanding result'

A bio refinery, which will be the logistical base for the on- and off-shore business, will also be installed.

 According to the Ministry of Economic Development, or Mise: "The green reconversion is an outstanding result, a reflection of the profitable cooperation between Mise, Eni’s administration, the Sicilian region and labor unions.”

 Antonio Ferro, head of Uiltec Sicily, a union representing workers at the plant, said: “I was not expecting this result but I am glad to announce this agreement as the green conversion of Gela represents an important step towards the protection of jobs and the strengthening of the industrial sector.”

 The soon-to-be bio-refinery has considerable geopolitical importance being the main point for oil arriving from Libya, a former Italian colony, along the crucial pipeline across the Mediterranean Sea.

- Doubts raised

Welcoming the deal, Rosario Crocetta,  President of  the regional government of Sicily, said: “With Gela we write a new page of history. We start again our industrial path, renewing the refinery, thus promoting eco-sustainability and forgetting about the past years of industrial pollution."

"We are now looking towards the welfare of our citizens," he said.

The government has already allocated €200 million to reclaim areas around the refinery and dismantle the older building.

However, doubts have been raised by trade union sources over the funding for the maintenance of the agreement, as Mise and Eni have not yet revealed a working schedule.    

www.aa.com.tr/en