Eni has announced that its Ravenna CCS Phase 2 project, developed by the company together with Europe’s leading natural gas operator, Snam, has been selected by the European Commission for funding under the 2025 Innovation Fund – Net-Zero Technologies, in the Large Scale category.

The Ravenna CCS initiative, which aims to build to build Italy’s first integrated, multimodal CO₂ transport and storage infrastructure, has been identified as a strategic priority for the European Union in terms of accelerating industrial decarbonisation and strengthening the competitiveness of Europe’s low-emission technology value chain. Eni says the selection represents significant recognition of the project’s industrial, technical and economic robustness, as well as its strategic relevance to achieving Europe’s climate objectives.

As a hub for the permanent storage of CO₂ in Italy and Mediterranean Europe, the Ravenna facility has an overall capacity of approximately 500 million tonnes, equivalent to more than 70% of the announced storage capacity in the Mediterranean. Phase 2 of the project will build on the experience gained during the first phase, which commenced in 2024. The development plan envisages reaching a storage capacity of 4 million tonnes of CO₂ per year by 2030, with the potential for progressive expansion to 16 million tonnes per year in subsequent development phases.

Specifically, the project provides for the development and operation by the Eni-Snam Joint Venture of the offshore geological storage infrastructure, the compression station, and the multimodal terminal for CO₂ reception. Snam will develop the onshore transport infrastructure, including the Ravenna-Casalborsetti and Ferrara-Casalborsetti pipelines, which will connect Italy’s main industrial areas to the Ravenna storage system.

The project’s multimodal architecture will enable CO₂ from a wide range of Italian and European industrial emitters to be collected by pipeline, ship, rail, and road transport, for subsequent permanent storage in offshore reservoirs in the Adriatic Sea.