Dive Brief:
- BlackRock’s Global Infrastructure Partners signed an exclusivity agreement Tuesday with Italian energy company Eni for the potential sale of a 49.99% co-controlling stake in Eni’s carbon capture, utilization and storage business.
- Eni CCUS Holding owns and operates several projects across Europe, including in the United Kingdom and Netherlands. The energy company’s carbon capture subsidiary also has the future right to acquire a project in Ravenna, Italy, projected to annually capture and store 4 millions tons of carbon dioxide by 2030.
- Once the deal and acquisition are finalized, GIP will not only own a stake in Eni’s business but also support investments to develop carbon capture and storage projects, the two companies said.
Dive Insight:
Eni, which is headquartered in Rome, Italy, said additional ventures could potentially be added to this lineup to “build a wide platform of CCUS projects.” The energy company said the agreement came after a thorough selection process that involved several suitors who expressed interest in the carbon solutions subsidiary.
Eni called carbon capture, utilization and storage a “mature and safe technological process” in a May 27 release, and “one of the key levers for the energy transition being the most efficient and effective decarbonization tool to support hard-to-abate industries in reducing their emissions.”
The agreement with GIP aligns with Eni’s broader strategy to split some of its operations into separate entities or satellites, and then sell minority stakes to get more funding for their development.
“The satellite model is an approach we have built to have additional funding sources to keep together the need to meet demand for traditional products, while also developing new, greener products," Eni Chief Financial Officer Francesco Gattei told Reuters earlier this month.
The deal will also allow GIP to expand its green infrastructure portfolio. The global infrastructure investor was acquired by BlackRock in September, after regulators greenlit a deal announced in January 2024 that placed the value of the purchase around $12.5 billion. The acquisition combined GIP’s $100 billion in assets under management and its energy, transport, water, waste and digital infrastructure focused portfolio with BlackRock’s $50 billion infrastructure platform.
At the time, the nation’s largest asset manager cited “a movement toward decarbonization and energy security in many parts of the world” as a reason for the deal.
