Versalis and Elevance to partner on bio-chemicals from vegetable oils

Versalis, the chemical subsidiary of Eni, and Elevance Renewable Sciences, a producer of specialty chemicals from natural oils, have signed a memorandum of understanding to establish a strategic partnership to jointly develop and scale a new metathesis technology to produce bio-chemicals from vegetable oils.

The companies will focus on jointly developing and scaling new catalysts, leveraging the progress of the technology already accomplished by Elevance. In addition, the partners will assess the design and construction of the first world scale ethylene metathesis-based production that will utilise renewable oils at Versalis' Porto Marghera site. This will also take advantage of existing infrastructures and production streams.

Versalis will contribute its expertise in catalysis process development and engineering design scale-up, while Elevance will bring proprietary know-how regarding metathesis and associated engineering with the use of vegetable oils in producing specialty chemicals for premium applications.

“The bio-based chemicals business is central to Versalis’ new industrial and business approach. The agreement with Elevance will further enhance our capability to progress in green innovation while boosting the transformation of one of our petrochemical sites into a more competitive and long term sustainable complex, thus creating synergies between the renewable with the petrochemical industries,” said Daniele Ferrari, Versalis CEO.

K’Lynne Johnson, Elevance CEO, added: “This partnership with Versalis is a natural next step building on the commercially competitive demonstrations of molybdenum-catalysed metathesis of natural oils that we have achieved in our partnership with XIMO. Versalis is an excellent partner for this next step due to its focus on developing innovative bio-based chemicals and potential to derive future synergies from integration at its Porto Marghera site.”