Elevance And Versalis Partner To Develop Biobased Chemicals From Vegetable Oils

On February 6, 2014, it was announced that Versalis, the chemical subsidiary of Eni, and Elevance Renewable Sciences, Inc., a producer of specialty chemicals from natural oils, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to establish a strategic partnership to jointly develop and scale a new metathesis technology to produce bio-chemicals from vegetable oils.

According to a press release by Elevance, "Versalis and Elevance intend to focus on jointly developing and scaling new catalysts, leveraging the significant progress of this technology that has been 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 utilize renewable oils at the Versalis Porto Marghera site. This will also take advantage of existing infrastructures and production streams. The market applications of the future bio-chemicals production will be personal care, detergents and cleaners, bio-lubricants and oilfield chemicals."

A copy of the press release is available online.