The unions have said they are prepared to mobilize in protest of the shutdown of the facility that employs 100 people directly and a similar number in downstream industries. The site’s aromatics production is also due to cease. All the plants are believed to be operating on a low flame.

It is as yet unclear whether any of the employees at Porto Marghera have been offered jobs elsewhere. For many years, the Italian government and the shrinking petrochemical industry maintained a relocation and/or compensation bureau for redundant employees as the once mighty business sector has tried to make the switch to renewables. It has long been silent, if it still exists.

Talks between Eni/Versalis management and the unions about creating a new Biotech segment within the group that would oversee a conversion to renewables began in mid-2019, but the unions branded the plans as inadequate and it evidently has gone nowhere. The overhaul, backed up with a promise to spend $1.5 billion on improvements, was aimed in part at integrating the portfolio acquired from bankrupt Italian renewable plastics specialist M&G.

Schemes for the greening of the Italian petrochemical industry have been on the drawing board for the better part of a decade, but even the conversion of a fossil fuel-based refinery to run on renewables took a backseat to keeping employment numbers steady.

Shortly before the naphtha cracker was to be decommissioned, in 2015, Versalis agreed to toll manufacture ethylene and propylene for Shell for a year while the oil and petrochemical group’s Moerdijk cracker was undergoing a revamp. After that, the next plan was to sell Versalis to Korean private equity investor SK Capital. This, too, failed, according to reports because of the long-term operation guarantees Eni sought.

It recently emerged that former Versalis CEO Daniele Ferarri, who also served as president of both the European industry associations PlasticsEurope and Cefic, took a job as senior director at SK Capital at the beginning of 2021. This news has left the markets wondering if there may be yet another plan for Porto Marghera.

Author: Dede Williams, Freelance Journalist