Eni and Petronas Study Race Bio-Gasoline
Eni and Malaysia’s Petronas have signed a feasibility agreement to test high-performance bio-gasoline made from Eni’s Ecofining process, a study presented during the Formula 1 Italian Grand Prix and aimed first at motorsport and later at commercial pumps.
The companies said yesterday they will examine the technical, market and sustainability case for fuels produced from renewable feedstocks, and how those fuels behave in competition engines. Ecofining has been used since 2014 to make hydrogenated vegetable oil biofuels. Eni would bring biorefinery output already sold as HVO diesel and sustainable aviation fuel, plus work on bio-gasoline. Petronas would bring fuel-formulation experience that runs from conventional products to high-performance sustainable blends for combustion engines.
The pact adds another layer to an existing partnership. The two firms recently created Searah, a 50-50 venture pooling 19 gas production and development assets in Indonesia and Malaysia. With Enilive and Euglena, Petronas is also building Pengerang Biorefinery in Johor. That plant is due in the second half of 2028 to process up to 650,000 tonnes of renewable feedstock a year into SAF, HVO diesel and bio-naphtha. Enilive already sells HVO diesel at more than 1,700 service stations in Europe.
A feasibility study is not a production decision. It does not set volumes, a launch date or a price. What it does is put two large energy groups on the same worksheet at a moment when racing series and regulators are pushing lower-carbon liquid fuels while much of the world’s car fleet still burns gasoline. If the laboratory and track work hold up, the same molecules could move from paddock to forecourt. If they do not, the agreement will remain a press-day footnote from Monza.
