Selling UCO into Italy: Enilive biorefineries, capacity and requirements

Why Italy is more than a side destination

When people talk about UCO landing in Europe, the conversation often starts in Rotterdam or Antwerp. Italy deserves its own line on the map. The country does not have the same tank-farm depth as the ARA range, but it does have two large hydrotreating biorefineries that run almost entirely on waste and residues, and they sit inside the EU single market with full RED reporting obligations.

That combination matters to an exporter in China or Southeast Asia. A cargo discharged in Italy is usually contracted because a named plant wants the tonnes, not because a trader plans to store them indefinitely. The buyer file is therefore tighter: you are proving origin, certification and quality for Enilive or for a supplier that feeds Enilive, not for anonymous tank capacity.

Customs statistics reported by trade press also show Italy among the main destinations of Chinese UCO, with about 32,500 tonnes in May 2026. The number is a snapshot, not a capacity figure, but it confirms that Italian demand is visible in export data and not only in corporate presentations.

Venice (Porto Marghera): Ecofining and the expansion

Eni converted the Venice refinery at Porto Marghera into a biorefinery in 2014. It runs the company’s Ecofining technology, the same hydrotreating route used to make HVO and, where configured, SAF from waste lipids. Eni describes the site as fed mainly with waste raw materials, about 85% of inputs, rather than crop oils.

Nameplate capacity today is 400,000 tonnes a year of biomass processing, with a project under way to raise that to 600,000 tonnes a year and to add SAF production at the site. On a desk that reads contracts, the practical point is volume: Venice is a steady pull for documented UCO, animal fats and other advanced feedstocks, and the expansion signal means procurement teams will plan longer positions.

Venice is a port site. Logistics still have to be written precisely — discharge port, receiving installation, who inspects at load and discharge — but the plant is not an inland mystery address. Sellers should name Venice or the agreed Italian discharge point in the Incoterm and match it to the sustainability declaration and Union Database entry.

Gela: throughput, SAF and the 2030 target

Gela, on Sicily’s south coast, is the larger of the two units. Eni states that it can process 736,000 tonnes of biomass a year, drawing mostly on used cooking oil, animal fat and vegetable-oil by-products. The site has produced SAF since January 2025, with Eni citing SAF capacity of 400,000 tonnes a year at Gela.

Those figures are not interchangeable. Biomass throughput describes what the biorefinery can take in; SAF capacity describes how much sustainable aviation fuel the configuration can target. A seller is rarely selling directly into a SAF batch, but the distinction explains why Italian buyers ask for tighter contaminant limits than a generic biodiesel ester plant might accept.

Enilive, Eni’s biofuels company, has publicly targeted more than 5 million tonnes of biorefining capacity by 2030. Venice and Gela are the core of that story today. Traders supplying the plants still need lot-level evidence, because corporate ambition does not relax certificate checks on a single flexitank.

What actually feeds Venice and Gela

Eni reports that in 2025 more than 95% of the raw materials for Venice and Gela were classified as waste and residues. The list in company disclosures includes UCO, soap stock, animal fats, palm oil mill effluent (POME) and palm fatty acid distillate (PFAD), with a stated aim to increase the share of advanced feedstocks over time.

For UCO exporters that sentence is both an opportunity and a filter. The plants are structurally hungry for waste lipids, so a well-documented UCO lot fits the profile. The filter is that “waste and residue” is a legal and certification category, not a shipping label. Mixed oil with weak collection records will not become advanced feedstock because the bill of lading says UCO.

Italy also collects UCO domestically through catering and municipal systems, but import data and buyer behaviour show Asian origins in the mix. Competing supply is normal. Your edge is a file that survives comparison: certificates that match the collecting point, self-declarations or equivalent origin evidence, and laboratory results tied to the inspected lot.

What Italian buyers require in the file

Expect ISCC EU certification along the chain from the collecting point through to the operator that issues the sustainability declaration for your lot, unless the buyer explicitly accepts an equivalent scheme. Italian producers report under the EU Renewable Energy Directive; the voluntary scheme is how most refiners prove sustainability characteristics to their auditors.

Paper without a Union Database entry is incomplete for EU biofuel use. Buyers typically expect a sustainability declaration per lot and a UDB record that matches the quantity, the dispatch date and the receiving installation. The certificate of analysis should follow the lot that was inspected, with standard parameters such as free fatty acids, moisture, impurities and volatiles, plus pretreatment-relevant contaminants such as phosphorus and metals that can poison hydrotreating catalysts.

Independent inspection at loading is standard in this trade. Seals, tank or container numbers, and sampling location should line up with the BL and the COA. If you are working through a trader, the trader should be named on the contract but the collecting point’s scope and validity dates must still match the oil’s origin story.

Turco & Co buys and sells UCO and reviews supplier files before either side is bound. We are not presented as an ISCC-certified operator; a collector’s certificate does not transfer to the trader by default. When we supply Italian destinations, we ask for the same evidence Enilive’s procurement team would ask for, aggregated into one coherent shipment file.

• ISCC EU chain of custody from collecting point to declaring operator
• Sustainability declaration and Union Database entry per lot
• COA including phosphorus, metals and other hydrotreating contaminants
• Independent inspection report tied to the loading event
• Named receiving installation (Venice, Gela or approved intermediate)
• From 19 November 2027: approved or registered establishment of origin

Regulation (EU) 2025/2181 from November 2027

Sustainability certification answers whether the oil counts as an advanced biofuel feedstock under RED rules. Regulation (EU) 2025/2181 answers a different question: whether the consignment may enter the EU as Category 3 material at all. From 19 November 2027, imported used cooking oil must originate from an approved or registered establishment in the exporting country, be filtered or separated so combined moisture and solids do not exceed 10% w/w, travel with the model importer declaration, and move under official monitoring to an approved biodiesel, renewable fuel, UCO handling or storage plant, or a registered oleochemical plant.

Italian biorefineries fall on the receiving side of that rule. Sellers should confirm that the destination named in the contract will be eligible to receive the cargo on the arrival date, and that the establishment of origin in Asia or elsewhere has started approval or registration early enough. The procedure length depends on the exporting country’s authority; it is not something to discover after the vessel sails.

The two regimes stack. A lot can meet ISCC EU and still fail import controls if the establishment is not listed, and an approved establishment cannot substitute for missing sustainability declarations. Italian buyers increasingly ask for both timelines in supplier onboarding.

Common questions

Sources and evidence

Primary references support the stated technical definitions. Procurement checklists are editorial guidance, not evidence of a specific lot, shipment or certification.

• Eni — Enilive begins SAF production in Gela (January 2025)
• Eni — Venice (Porto Marghera) biorefinery
• Eni — Position on biomass
• Fastmarkets — China’s May 2026 UCO exports (GACC customs data) · Secondary source — medium confidence
• Commission Regulation (EU) 2025/2181 — Import of used cooking oil

Confirm laboratory methods, commercial terms and applicable requirements with the buyer and qualified advisers before contracting. No guide establishes stock availability or company certification.