Italy's Eni is planning to close its steam cracking capacity in Brindisi by the end of April despite calls for a rethink, trade union Filctem Cgil said.
"The company said it intends to close the cracker within the first four months of the year," Filctem Cgil national secretary Antonio Pepe told Argus.
The timeline emerged last week at a meeting between the trade unions, government and Eni at the industry ministry in Rome called to discuss the next steps for the Brindisi plant.
It followed an earlier meeting in December on Eni's plans to shut its cracking capacity at Priolo in Sicily and end polyethylene production at its 160,000t/yr site in Ragusa.
At that meeting Eni said it intended to close the Priolo cracker by the end of this year and start of 2026. "There will now be a final meeting at the end of this month to pull together the threads of the two meetings and take decisions," Pepe said.
Eni, which is more than 30pc state owned, is looking to significantly cut the exposure of its chemicals business Versalis to basic chemicals, a sector that it sees is facing structural and irreversible decline in Europe.
Last October, it unveiled a €2bn ($2.06bn) euro restructuring plan to close basic chemical plants and invest in innovative platforms over the next five years. The plans include building a new biorefinery at the Priolo site at a cost of around €800-900mn.
Eni has previously said the Brindisi and Priolo crackers will be shut down within 12-18 months.
The nameplate ethylene capacity at Brindisi is 410,000 t/yr and propylene capacity is 220,000 t/yr. The Priolo site has nameplate capacities of 430,000 t/yr ethylene, 250,000 t/yr propylene, and 790,000 t/yr aromatics.
Filctem CGIL has called on Rome to reject Eni's plans to close cracking operations at Brindisi and Priolo, claiming it would put 20,000 jobs at risk and deal a death blow to Italy's chemicals industry.
