Italy’s Eni reportedly close to deal in oil sands

Italian energy company Eni SpA is close to a deal in the oil sands, an Italian financial newspaper reports. Finanza & Mercati said Eni has a preliminary agreement for a bitumen licence where it would use a proprietary technology. Without identifying its source, the newspaper said yesterday that a final deal could be signed by the end of September.

Eni’s newly developed system called EST — Eni slurry technology — could make the upgrading of raw bitumen into synthetic crude oil more efficient, the company said during a technology presentation in early June. Eni said it was testing Alberta bitumen with its system and added that it was confident results would be positive. The system worked using other types of heavy oil.

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