Italian energy and chemicals company Eni has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to work with Indonesia’s Pertamina in areas that include the circular economy, low carbon products and renewable energies.

In particular, they have agreed to explore opportunities and discuss collaboration in waste transformation and biomass valorization processes, leveraging Eni’s proprietary technologies for waste-to-fuels, waste-to-hydrogen, sewage sludge conversion into biomethane production by anaerobic digestion, advanced biofuels and chemicals from biomass.

Furthermore, the companies have agreed to explore working together in the field of recycling and re-use, namely water treatment and re-use processes along with polymer recycling technologies.

The MoU also includes possible collaboration in the research and technology development of waste valorization, carbon dioxide (CO2) biofixation and re-use for sustainable mobility.

In addition, Eni and Pertamina have signed a Heads of Agreement for a joint venture that plans to build a grassroots bio-refinery in Indonesia. No further details on the project were given.

In separate news, the Rome-headquartered group has signed a deal with Sabic to further develop technology that converts natural gas into synthesis gas, which can then be transformed into fuels and chemicals, including methanol.

The partners will construct a demonstration plant at one of Eni’s sites, using technology based on the short contact time catalytic partial oxidation (SCT-CPO) of natural gas, which was initially developed by the Italian firm.

The companies said the joint technology will be a “truly innovative way of making synthesis gas and integration into high-value applications to achieve lower CAPEX and OPEX, higher energy efficiency, lower CO₂ footprint and wide feedstock flexibility”.