Sustainability

Water resources management is focused on minimising withdrawals and the reuse of process water that is obtained from the most diverse industrial activities.

In some cases, also water recovered from safety enhancement and reclamation activities is reused within the production sites.

millions of m³         

 The 2009 rest column shows the values for 2009 net of data on ISAB S.r.l.

The water drawn is mainly sea water used to cool the plants and equipment. After use, the water is returned to the collection tank, having checked its quality.

Monitoring the marine area in the Bay of Santa Panagia

For many years, ISAB Energy (together with the ISAB Refinery) has carried out campaigns for monitoring the chemicophysical characteristics of the stretch of sea that receives the water used to cool the plants: the objective is to obtain a picture of the ecological and chemical condition of the water in the bay of Santa Panagia.
The results of the 2010 monitoring campaign showed that the values measured conform to those laid down by the legislation and the reference standards (Environment Act).

Minimizing atmospheric emissions is pursued above all through increasing the use of low carbon intensity and low-sulphur fuels together with suitable systems for reduction and control and through  investments in thermoelectric sector.

In 2009 the project for the “environmentalization” of the SA1N/3 unit, which is part of the North SA1 Power Station, were completed, improving the Power Station’s environmental performance.

Today the SA1N/3 unit has the possibility of using fuel oil, refinery fuel gas (gaseous fuel produced by the adjacent ISAB Refinery) and natural gas. In summary, the investment project of some EUR 22 million featured:

• Installation of an electrostatic precipitator (ESP – a.k.a. electrostatic air cleaner) for particulate abatement, which already during 2009 substantially reduced specific emissions by about 70% compared with pre-investment conditions
• Substitution of the 9 oil/gas burners present in the boiler with low-NOx burners, which has permitted tangible environmental improvement in all operating conditions envisaged
• Use of a new fuel-oil feed system
• Modernization of the instrument & control system.

The project has been developed in parallel with repowering of the site’s power stations, which has involved substitution of the existing CTE (condenser thermoelectric) plant with the new CCGT (combined-cycle gas turbine) plant fuelled with natural gas with capacity of 480 MW.

The new CCGT power station obtained a 12-year EUR 330-million project financing which confirms the project validity. The electricity produced is partly fed into the Italian national grid and in part used to fuel the multi-company site’s plants.

ERG’s investments in the thermoelectric segment, using the best available techniques (BATs), have a twofold objective, i.e.

• improve energy efficiency
• reduce operations’ environmental impact.
  
  Operation of the CCGT, together with the SA1N/3 unit, by modifying the site’s original thermoelectric set-up is in practice helping to achieve the Group’s energy-efficiency objective. It is also yielding an environmental benefit as it has reduced the main pollutants (SOx, NOx and dust) by between 60% and 70%.

Activities for the prevention and protection of the soil and the subsoil go through action plans, the aims of which are:

• the analysis and assessment of new projects
• clean-up interventions
• environmental characterization
• safety enhancement
• reclamation

Most of these activities refer to the industrial sites in Sicily (ISAB Energy, ISAB Refinery) Italian environmental regulations concerning clean-ups and soil, subsoil, and groundwater contamination has undergone several changes during the last few years, in particular due to transposition of EU directives and to the aim of aiding an increasingly “site-specific” approach to these issues.

As has already partly happened at EU level, at national level an approach has been consolidated that is based on analysis of the health and environmental risks and recognized as the most advanced decision-making support tool in the management of contaminated sites.

Particularly important measures to be noted in this respect are some that involve ERG’s industrial facilities, i.e. :

• designation of “national-interest sites” to aid specific development programmes and definition of the procedures for transaction and quantification of costs by the Environment Ministry as part the specific Programme Agreement for clean-up and reclamation at the Priolo site (procedures for settlement of the administrative litigation underway, approval of clean-up projects and restoration of the areas to their lawful uses).

• ERG is actively dialoguing with the Environment Ministry in order to assess whether the new approach identified in the Programme Agreement is compatible with its investment plans for the Syracuse industrial area.

• Projects presented in the past are also being updated and supplemented so that they can be submitted for approval by the Authority (i.e. the Environment Ministry) within the scope of the Agreement.