Versalis acquires Beta Renewables and Biochemtex

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Type of post: NEWS IN BRIEF.

In September 2017, it became known that the Court of Alessandria admitted Gruppo Mossi Ghisolfi companies to the “concordato preventivo” in accordance with article 161 sixth paragraph of the Bankruptcy Law. The group included four companies focused on the biorefinig and bioenergy sectors: Biochemtex, Beta Renewables, Ipb (Italian Bio Products) and Ipb energia.

Since that time, several rumors have circulated with regard to the future of those companies. Finally, late last month, Versalis (Eni Group's chemical subsidiary that has entered the biobased chemicals and polymers industry) announced that had won the bidding process ordered by the Court of Alessandria for Mossi & Ghisolfi's Group’s ”green” activities (see press release, 26/9/2018). The operation includes assets and resources of the four aforementioned companies, related to development activities, industrialisation, licensing of technologies and bio-chemical processes based on the use of renewable resources. According to the press release, this movement will allow Versalis to develop an integrated technological platform of chemicals from biomass, in line with the strategy undertaken in recent years.

The main innovative asset is the Proesa® technology, which unlocks access to the fermentable sugars present in lignocellulosic biomass, for production of transportation fuels and other chemicals. The famous cellulosic ethanol plant that Beta Renewables owned in Crescentino (Italy) is based on this technology. Other important projects were under development before the bankruptcy of the group. The Blog will follow with interest the coming events arising from this news.

Figure 1. Night view of the cellulosic ethanol plant that Beta Renewables owned in Crescentino (extracted from the Biochemtex website)

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