Not what they promised

Summary

In 2024, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the Italian Climate Fund announced a $210 million investment in Eni’s Kenyan subsidiaries to expand the production and processing of advanced biofuels, supporting the decarbonisation of the global transport industry and the livelihoods of up to 200,000 small-scale Kenyan oilseed farmers.

The stated aim outlined in IFC’s press release is to grow non-edible oilseed crops like castor, croton, and cotton seeds on lands where growing crops is difficult, as not to compete with food supplies.

Successfully growing non-edible feedstocks on poor quality, marginal lands would go a long way to appeasing major concerns over biofuels around deforestation and competition with food production. There are growing expectations for these feedstocks as part of a broader uptake in biofuels within the global transport decarbonisation efforts.

Yet, trade records and public data accessed by T&E and verified by Source Material show that Eni's Kenya subsidiaries have been importing large quantities of rapeseed from South Africa. Identified customs records indicate that significant volumes of rapeseed oil have then been re-exported to Italy to be refined into biofuel, possibly accounting for up to 80% of all of Eni’s exports from Kenya to its refineries in Gela and Venice in 2025.

Taken together, these data appear to suggest that current volumes of locally produced non-edible oilseeds are insufficient to account for observed export levels, with imported food crops making up a significant share of feedstocks processed in Kenya. This raises serious questions over the viability of growing non-food crops to meet growing global biofuels demand.

Eni, on the contrary, is of the opinion that the use of rapeseed oil does not conflict with the stated aims for the project in Kenya; rather, “it is complementary”. Eni’s reaction to T&E’s findings can be found in the main text and in the Annex of the pdf downloadable.

The Mattei plan

In early 2024 the Italian government launched a strategic initiative to deepen and reshape Italy’s partnership with African countries. It was named after Enrico Mattei, the founder of Italian oil company Eni.

For the Italian government the Mattei Plan seeks to address multiple challenges: migration, climate change and economic development. In November 2025, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said:

“The Mattei Plan is not just an Italian initiative, but is now a strategy with a European and international scope, which looks far ahead and is gaining increasing support. Today the Mattei Plan is no longer an idea, but an operational reality that is producing concrete results.”

“This project marks the dawn of a new industry for Kenya, an industry where Kenya could become a world leader,” said Makhtar Diop, IFC Managing Director.

One of the key pillars of the Mattei Plan is energy and within that biofuels production. In 2024, IFC and the Italian Climate Fund announced a $210 million investment in Eni S.p.A.'s Kenya subsidiary to expand the production and processing of advanced biofuels, supporting the decarbonisation of the global transport industry and the livelihoods of up to 200,000 small-scale Kenyan oilseed farmers.

No competition with food crops

The stated aim of the project is to grow non-edible oilseed crops like castor, croton, and cotton seeds on lands where growing crops is difficult, as not to compete with food supplies. Eni expects a production increase of oilseeds from 44,000 tons to 500,000 tons per year (the exact timeframe for this is unclear in the press release). Guido Brusco, Eni’s Chief Operating Officer for Natural Resources said they aimed to produce 200,000 tonnes by 2026.

According to Eni’s press release in 2022:

“The agri-hub will process castor, croton and cotton seeds to extract vegetable oil. These are sustainable, agri-feedstock raw materials that do not compete with the food supply chain because they come from crops that are resistant to aridity and suitable for growing on degraded soils, namely castor crops, seeds harvested from spontaneous plants (croton), and co-products of the cotton supply chain in a circular economy perspective.”

Interestingly, Eni’s project in Kenya is the first certified as low-ILUC, i.e. a project with low indirect land-use change (ILUC) effects. The certification confirms compliance with EU standards aimed at ensuring that biofuel production does not indirectly shift agricultural land intended for food and feed production towards biofuel production.

T&E has looked at Eni’s imports in Kenya using trade records from Volza, supplemented by other sources like the UN Comtrade data, data from the Kenyan Port Authority and vessels’ AIS data. Through its Kenyan subsidiaries Eni Kenya BV and Eni Natural Energies Kenya EPZ Ltd, Volza custom data show that in early 2024, Eni imported relatively small amounts of castor seeds, notably from Brazil and India.

Since the second half of 2024, our analysis shows a new trend, with a significant increase in rapeseed imports from South Africa into Kenya.

Between September 2024 and December 2025, and based on the sources mentioned above, we estimate that shipments totalling nearly 100,000 tonnes of rapeseed seeds arrived from South Africa, with Eni’s Kenyan subsidiaries listed as the consignees. In Volza’s records, these rapeseed shipments are mentioned to originate from a South African company named Southern Oil Pty Limited. According to its ISCC certificate, Southern Oil supplies both rapeseed seeds and rapeseed oil.

It also appears on Volza customs data that since October 2025, Eni has been buying thousands of large woven polypropylene (WPP) bags with “Rapeseed” printed on it, from Kenyan companies which might be used to transport seeds, potentially from bulk carriers to perhaps one of Eni’s facilities in Wote, Makueni County or Bonje, Kwale County. When contacted, Eni confirmed to T&E that it imported rapeseed seeds from South Africa and used them as one of the feedstock inputs within its Kenyan operations. However, Eni claimed to have used jumbo bags, not WPP bags, to move the seeds from bulk storage facilities to the agri-hubs.

Customs’ data moreover show that Eni imported into Kenya diverse oil seed types on top of castor and rapeseed seeds, such as sunflower, safflower, brassica, camelina or crotalaria seeds from different countries. Given the small quantities involved, these seeds could be intended for sowing trials rather than oil extraction, suggesting that the oil company may be exploring alternative crop types to address potential shortcomings of its initial castor oil plan and to maintain its broader biofuels strategy in the country. Finally, Volza lists trade records of rapeseed cake and castor oil waste which might be by-products from the crushing facilities.

Furthermore, data from the Kenya Ports Authority confirm custom records from Volza and report three bulk carriers discharging rapeseed seeds in Mombasa in September 2024, March and September 2025. The vessels’ AIS data also show their trip from Cape Town, South Africa to Mombasa, Kenya, where Eni’s Kenyan subsidiaries are located, as can be seen below.

Finally, Instagram posts from the South African pest control company Reliance RFSA show pictures of the three vessels loaded with bulk rapeseed seeds in Cape Town, as well as mentioning the exact quantities carried by each ship.

This suggests Eni is not managing to cultivate the expected quantities of biomass in Kenya, as outlined in its industrial plans.

Eni, on the contrary, responded to say the project with local farmers is progressing according to the planned trajectory. It claims that this initiative does not conflict with the stated aims for the project in Kenya, rather, “it is complementary”. It also claims that rapeseed imported in Kenya has been cultivated in South Africa from traceable farms on severely degraded land. T&E has not been able to verify this, as it has not been made public and the supplier, Southern Oils does not appear to advertise that its crops are grown specifically on degraded land.

When we look at export records in Volza from Eni’s Kenyan subsidiaries to Eni’s refineries in Italy, we see that more than 30,000 tonnes were rapeseed oil between January and December 2025. We estimate that this represents around 80% of all oily feedstocks from Kenya supplying the company’s refineries in Gela and Venice over the period. More on our methodology and comparison with UN Comtrade data in the Annex.

Eni contested this, saying rapeseed oil does not represent 80% of its total exported oily feedstocks volumes in 2025 but only around 40%.

Eni claims that exported volumes do not correspond with total production volumes. Export figures are influenced by a range of operational factors, including logistics, industrial planning, shipping schedules and storage availability.

In more limited quantities, T&E’s analysis shows regular used cooking oil volumes exported from Kenya, probably from local food businesses as advertised by Eni through its “Fry responsibly, dispose accordingly” or FREDA collection campaign in the country. On the other end, castor oil and croton oil only totalled around 5,000 tonnes exported to Italy in 2025. This appears to be similar to volumes reported by the Kenyan Agriculture and Food Authority for the previous year, suggesting a stagnation in castor oil seeds production. This report also mentions that “Eni Company Ltd is the main buyer of castor beans in the country”.

When crushed, using standard industry yields of 40-50%, we estimate that Eni’s rapeseed seeds imports to Kenya previously described in the graph on page 5 would correspond to around 38,000 - 49,000 tonnes of oil between Sep 2024 and November 2025, or 28,000 - 34,000 tonnes of oil in 2025 only.

Kenya domestically produced 15,000 tonnes of rapeseed in 2024. After processing, that would make roughly 6,000 - 8,000 tonnes of rapeseed oil domestically produced. If Kenya is exporting domestically grown food crops (or food crop oil) to Europe for biofuel, this would be highly problematic and would not align with Eni’s stated aim of not competing with food production. T&E is unable to verify this.

A previous investigation from T&E in 2024 sheds light on some of the difficulties Eni could be having in growing seed crops in Kenya. Farmers, who spoke to T&E, said that the labour required to grow, pick, shell and dry the castor beans was simply not worth the price Eni and their agent SAFA71 was offering for them. T&E obtained contracts between Makueni farmers and SAFA which showed prices of KSh25 being offered for a kilogram of deshelled castor beans and KSh7 per kilo of croton nuts in 2022. At these rates, a 10 kilogram crop of shelled castor beans would have earned a farmer just about €1.42.

T&E has not been able to reassess the current prices offered to farmers for this investigation.

Trade records and public data accessed by T&E show that Eni's Kenyan subsidiaries have been importing large quantities of rapeseed from South Africa. This data suggests that possibly after crushing it into oil, the company appears to be re-exporting significant volumes of rapeseed oil to Italy to be refined into biofuel.

This raises questions about whether the project is being presented in a way that aligns with its operational reality, and whether it is potentially misleading investors, as Eni explicitly set up its plants in Kenya to support local farmers to grow seed oils as part of the Italian government-backed Mattei Plan. Eni even received $135 million from the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) and €75 million from the Italian Climate Fund to support the project.

The findings also raise major concerns that Eni has overpromised and is struggling to deliver on its high biofuels promises. Despite extensive marketing and stated commitments, the company appears unable, based on available trade data for 2024 and 2025, to meet its targets using locally produced advanced feedstocks. This not only raises questions about Eni’s implementation of the Mattei Plan, but also casts doubt on the commercial viability of producing biofuels from crops grown on severely degraded land at scale. Eni contested this, claiming that its total production has grown from 2.5 kt in 2022, the project’s start‑up year, to 130 kt in 2024, with 2025 production exceeding the company’s targets.

Yet, in response to these seeming shortfalls, Eni appears to have relied on imported first-generation feedstocks to fill the supply gap. If this is the case, serious questions arise about the sustainability of the project and its actual industrial, social, and climate potential. The findings not only put into question the economic and employment benefits for Kenyan farmers, but it raises questions over the viability of growing seed crops on marginal lands as a way to tackle climate change. This is crucial as funding for these projects largely comes from funds intended to prevent climate change.

You can find Eni's full response to T&E's findings in the attached briefing.