Stalled, the Porto Torres green chemistry project began in 2011 with an agreement signed at the Prime Minister's Office between the government, the Sardinia Region, local authorities, unions, and Eni. It was a pact with the local community: industrial reconversion, job protection, and development of the local supply chain. On this topic, Democratic Party MP Silvio Lai submitted a parliamentary question regarding the management of contracts at the Porto Torres industrial site. "At the Novamont site, formerly Matrìca, the exact opposite is happening today. Tenders for maintenance and industrial services are conducted on a national basis, involving over twenty companies from various Italian petrochemical hubs. In some cases, the contracts have been awarded to companies outside Sardinia ."
Specifically, the tender for metalworking maintenance involved over twenty national companies and was awarded to a company based in Sicily ; the tender for industrial cleaning involved over twenty national companies and was awarded to another Sicilian company ; national tenders are underway for electrical and instrumentation maintenance and fire prevention maintenance, both with the participation of over twenty companies from across Italy. During the Matrìca period, the tenders were managed using territorial procedures and with a list of specialized local companies that had been ensuring plant maintenance and the development of industrial activities on the site for years.
"Today this model has been completely eliminated," adds Lai. "In some cases, even the contractual clauses that provided for the two-year extension of existing contracts were not respected, resulting in the exclusion of local companies that had been operating steadily in the industrial hub." For the Democratic Party representative, "this is a serious change of direction. Green chemistry was supposed to be an industrial reconversion project rooted in the northern Sardinia region . If local companies are excluded, that project loses its social and economic legitimacy."
And he adds: "Eni is gradually turning territorial agreements into scraps of paper, as has already happened in other industrial hubs in the South, from Sicily to Puglia. Commitments made with the territories are useful when it comes to gaining consensus for industrial conversions; then, once the plants are up and running, the territory is set aside."
The Porto Torres green chemistry project was accompanied by public interventions, remediation procedures for the industrial site, and an institutional protocol signed with the government. "This is why I asked the government to initiate an immediate review of compliance with the commitments made to the local area," concludes Silvio Lai. "First, the local area is asked to trust us to close the plants. Then, once the reconversion begins, the local area is excluded. This is unacceptable."
