Syndial, Eni’s environmental services company, begins operating at its pilot plant at the the Gela refinery. The plant transforms Organic Fraction of Municipal Solid Waste (OFMSW) by recycling it into bio-oil, which can then be used to produce next-generation fuels. The plant represents the first milestone in a process driven by Eni’s own research and launched with the development of the proprietary waste-to-fuel technology created by Eni’s Renewable Energy and Environmental R&D Center in Novara.

Through waste-to-fuel technology, the process of converting biomass into energy can be completed in just a few hours with a low environmental impact. Additionally, the technology generates a byproduct that is a precious and increasingly scarce resource: water, for both civil and industrial usage. Wet waste is exploited not only by producing bio-oil and biomethane, but also by recycling and treating its water content, which is around 70%, in a system which will provide great benefits for society.

Through these operations, Eni is putting in place another major pillar for a strategy characterised by an integrated circular economy model. Following the completion of the pilot phase, Eni will build waste-to-fuel plants on an industrial scale, which will eliminate a great amount of organic waste through reuse and provide significant environmental benefits to large urban areas in Italy and abroad. 

The activity at the Gela plant will enable Eni to gather the data needed to inform the design of future plants. The Gela pilot plant has a bio-oil production capacity of approximately 70 kg per day and is supplied with 700 kg of organic waste per day by SRR, a waste management company in Ragusa.

The waste-to-fuel project is a tangible example of Eni’s integrated circular economy model in action. In addition to repurposing reclaimed or disused sites, Eni extracts value from raw materials found in waste by transforming them into new energy materials with zero impact on the food chain. Simultaneously, Eni makes a contribution to the areas where it operates by offering support to the municipal waste disposal system.

(ITALPRESS/MNA)

Source: medNews

Sparkle, the International Services arm of the TIM Group and among the top ten global operators, strengthens its ICT innovation skills by welcoming on board twelve young STEM graduates in South Italy and in particular in its offices in Palermo and Catania.

Within the ICT and Network divisions, the Telecommunications and IT engineers will manage the transmission platforms to support Sparkle’s network and submarine cable systems, as well as control the infrastructures and platforms for automation, programmability and virtualization of network functions.

The new recruits successfully completed a training period focused on assurance processes and transmission services, specializing in various installed technologies, in line with the transversal approach required by the international market.

Via the two poles of Palermo and Catania, Sicily has been a strategic area for Sparkle for years, confirming its vocation as Mediterranean Hub, the heart of technological innovation and the main gateway for Internet traffic between Europe and Africa, the Middle East and Asia.

Palermo hosts the Sicily Hub, a neutral data center that is emerging as the main hub for Internet traffic in the Mediterranean thanks to its proximity to North Africa and the Middle East and its connectivity to all cable landing stations in Sicily.

Sicily Lab is the hyper-converging data center and technology innovation laboratory in Catania. It has recently contributed to the success of Sparkle, awarded for two cutting-edge projects during MEF 2018, the leading industry meeting dedicated to the development of innovative technologies for international connectivity.

The specialized training of new employees is part of the broader Global Training Program dedicated to partners, operators and service providers, that Sparkle has been carrying out for several years and which in 2019 will be further expanded with new initiatives in collaboration with institutions based in Sicily.

(ITALPRESS/MNA)

 

Source: medNews

Within the framework of “Palermo Capital of Culture 2018”, a show of about thirty models of the Prancing Horse took place in the Sicilian capital, promoted by the Scuderia Ferrari Club Palermo and San Vito Lo Capo and presided over respectively by Alessandro Li Muli and Roberto Leone.  The Major Leoluca  Orlando took part in the event, together with the municipal councilor Giulio Cusimano and, in representation of the Government of Malta, the Parliamentary Secretary for the Protection of Consumers in Valletta, Deo Debattista. The two chairmen of the Scuderia Ferrari Club have given the souvenir plates to the Maltese guest.

(ITALPRESS/MNA)

Source: medNews

Positive signs come from Tunisian food exports, which show an increase of 63% in the first six months of 2018, compared to the same period of last year.

According to data published by the Ministry of Agriculture, Hydroelectric Resources and Fisheries, olive oil is the driving force behind the sector, which has seen an increase in exports: 80.4 thousand tons for an estimated value of 776.9 million dinars compared with 26.4 thousand tons in 2017 for a value of 233.3 million dinars. Olive oil confirms itself to be one of the protagonists of Tunisian exports, representing 15% of the total value of total agricultural production.

The exports of dates and fish products also contributed to this positive result, which grew by 60% and 34% respectively in the same period of reference.

(ITALPRESS/MNA)

Source: medNews

Esso Italiana, a subsidiary of ExxonMobil, and Sonatrach Raffineria Italiana S.r.l. said today that they have completed their transaction announced earlier this year for Esso’s Augusta refinery, three fuel terminals in Augusta, Palermo and Naples, and associated pipelines. Esso’s former assets have been formally transferred to Sonatrach Raffineria Italiana, a new fully owned Sonatrach Italian subsidiary.

ExxonMobil has also entered into a variety of multi-year agreements with Sonatrach for technical support, refinery products, operations, and use of the Augusta, Palermo and Naples terminals.

The transaction does not affect Esso branded retail stations, fuels and lubricants customers or distributors, or ExxonMobil’s other operations in Italy.

(ITALPRESS/MNA)

Source: medNews

The State of Israel has 60 million US dollars to invest in various sectors in Angola, in particular in the construction of a solar power plant in the province of Benguela, to fill the local deficit in terms of production and distribution. This information was released in Benguela by the ambassador in Angola, Oren Rosenblat, speaking to the press, after a courtesy meeting with the governor of the province, Rui Falcão, underlining that the construction of this plant comes in response to a request from local authorities. According to Oren Rosenblat, the province of Benguela experiences irregularities in the production and distribution of electricity, for the development of this part of the country, in particular its industrial park, hence the realization of the solar power plant initiative, in the near future.

As mentioned, the infrastructure, with a capacity to produce 50 megawatts, will be built by Israeli entrepreneurs, as part of a project that the state has developed over the last five years for the sustainable growth of African countries, especially in remote locations and for populations that do not have energy from the national network. On the other hand, he stressed that Israel’s priority in Benguela essentially lies in the agricultural sector, since the 10 municipalities in the province have excellent areas for agriculture.

“Our primary objective is to contribute to the expansion of the agricultural sector, through technical exchange, taking into account the great agricultural potential of the region, whose foundations are based on family farming, to encourage the participation of the private sector in feasible projects outlined by the government, due to the scarcity of financial resources, “he said.
Incidentally, he reported that the State of Israel has already invested USD 300 million in the agro-livestock sector in Angola, since 2014.

“We want to establish cooperation with the Government of Benguela in agriculture and energy, such as those already established in different provinces, where farms built by Israel are successfully advancing, thus ensuring food security in those areas,” he said. Asked about the importance of the Lobito Corridor, he said that its development necessarily implies an increase in the volume of internal investments. From his point of view, in the African continent there is a problem since “entrepreneurs prefer to invest outside their countries”, he said.
For Oren Rosenblat, the increase in investments in the Lobito Corridor is crucial for the future of the economies of Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Zambia, a process where the Benguela Railway will play a leading role.
(ITALPRESS/MNA).

Source: medNews

Exports of Tunisian olive oil generated revenues of 2.14 billion dinars and 215 thousand tons at the end of October 2018, according to the figures presented by the Ministry of Agriculture, Water Resources and Fisheries, knowing that during the 2017/2018 season, olive oil production reached about 325 thousand tons, compared to 100 thousand tons of last season.

Also according to these figures, production reached 1.6 million tons of olives, which generated 325 thousand tons of oil. For comparison, last season’s olive production reached 500 thousand tons per 100 thousand tons of oil.

The exports of olive oil performed well, too, with an evolution of 156%, in value and 147% in volume.

It should be noted that the European market absorbs 70% of Tunisian exports. Between January 2018 and October 7, 2018, 44,000 tons were authorized for export under a quota (56,700 tons) established with the European Union (EU), were exported to Europe.

(ITALPRESS/MNA)

Source: medNews

The European Commission asked the European Banking Authority (EBA) to conduct a survey which found that the Malta Financial Intelligence and Analysis Unit (FIAU) was violating EU legislation. The European Commission has therefore formulated a formal opinion requesting the Maltese Anti-Money Laundering Supervisory Authority (Financial Intelligence and Analysis Unit) to take a series of precautions including improving its risk assessment methodology for money laundering and financing. terrorism, strengthen its control and monitoring strategy by aligning resources with the risk presented by some recycling institutes, ensure that the authority is able to react quickly to any identified shortcomings, including  through the revision of its sanctioning procedures, to ensure that its decision-making process is adequately motivated and documented, to adopt systematic and detailed registration procedures for non-site inspections. Valdis Dombrovskis, Vice-President responsible for Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union, said “the EBA will be given the tools and additional resources needed to ensure effective cooperation and convergence supervision. I trust in the cooperation of the European Parliament and the Council to make this proposal immediately a legislative act”. 

 

Source: medNews

Orascom Road Construction announced that the volume of business implemented as part of  the national road projects amounted to 13 billion Egyptian pounds, the company CEO said.
The National Roads Project is a large Egyptian infrastructure project initiated by President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in August 2014. The project includes the construction of 39 new roadways with a total length of 4,400 km. The new road network will account for around 10% of the total length of all roads in Egypt. The company is currently carrying out El Tor-Sharm El Sheikh road of 250 kilo meter, in addition to implementing internal roads within the new administrative capital.
El Tor-Sharm El Sheikh road will be completed by the end of end of the current year.(ITALPRESS/MNA).

Source: medNews

The Malta Blockchain Summit, an international event dedicated to DLTs (Distributed Ledger Technologies), was held in Malta. Over 8.000 people including investors, companies and specialists in the sector participated. The smallest member of the European Union has decided to focus strongly on this type of technology and has established itself as a Blockchain Island, also thanks to the promptness with which the government has approved several bills that regulate the sector.
The presence of a precise legislative framework has attracted the interest of many companies that offer services that are based on this new technology, and that see in Malta the ideal environment to carry out their operations. 

The Summit opened with the presence of Joseph Muscat, Maltese Prime Minister, who stressed that “the blockchain seed landed on fertile soil here. We began watering it to ensure it grows in an organic way, building the blocks to ensure that it will bear fruit when the time is right”.
During the course of the summit, the issues of legislation, transparency, the relationship between decentralization and government, cryptocurrencies, investments in the sector, the protection of operators and the numerous applications of DLTs were analyzed.

The stand area welcomed 300 exhibitors, including cryptocurrencies, cryptocurrency exchange services, government agencies and law firms. The technological part was not exclusively limited to blockchain, as it also extended to the fields of artificial intelligence and quantum technology and the Internet of Things with their application in many sectors, from medicine to agriculture, from transport to customer service.

The Malta Blockchain Summit also featured a Start-up Village, sponsored by Malta Enterprise, the Maltese government agency for economic development, which is also responsible for attracting foreign direct investment to Malta. The Start-up Village gave the opportunity to 40 start-ups to show their technological offer to over 1000 investors. “Malta Enterprise has, among its main objectives, that to promote and support new business ideas”, explained Anthony David Gatt, Malta Enterprise Investment Promotion Manager. 

“We strongly believe that new technologies, such as blockchain, internet of things and artificial intelligence, represent the future for almost all productive sectors. For this reason we have invited 40 start-ups to the Malta Blockchain Summit, and we are confident that many of them will choose Malta as a base for their activities, taking full advantage of the opportunities that Malta offers not only from a legislative point of view, but also specifically from the direct support that Malta Enterprise provides to young companies that invest in technology”.

Source: medNews