ROME, Sept. 3 (Xinhua) -- Italian energy giant Eni and energy infrastructure company Snam on Tuesday announced that they launched the country's first carbon capture and storage (CCS) project.
The companies, which first announced their joint venture in January 2023, said that they had begun injecting concentrated carbon dioxide (CO2) into a depleted gas field in the Adriatic Sea, off the coast of Italian city of Ravenna.
Italy has lagged behind some other European Union member states in launching a large CCS project. In its statement, Eni said the initiative would become "the world's leading CCS project and will play a relevant role in reaching the goal set by the European Union to develop at least 50 million tonnes of CO2 storage capacity by 2030."
In the initial stage, the two companies plan to inject around 25,000 metric tons of the common greenhouse gas in the field via converted gas lines. Most of the CO2 will be generated by Eni's natural gas treatment plant in Ravenna. By 2030, the project is expected to be able to absorb up to 4 million tons of CO2 per year.
The project itself will be powered by renewable energy, which means the transport of the CO2 will not result in any new emissions.
In a statement, the companies said that the project is already eliminating more than 90 percent of the CO2 emissions produced at the Ravenna plant.
Carbon capture and storage technologies are designed to capture CO2 emissions from industrial processes and store them underground to prevent them from entering the atmosphere and contributing to global warming.
