Italian oil company Eni and the country’s power utility Enel have agreed to begin capturing carbon from coal combusted by power plants, it was understood Wednesday.

The companies will implement Italy's first project for the capture, capture and storage of carbon dioxide. Enel will build a CO2 capture and liquefaction plant in Brindisi, southern Italy, and Eni will inject the liquefied gas into the disused Stogit field at Cortemaggiore.

The company pairing will do “an integrated pilot” aiming to deposit the “carbon” underground.

The pilot mergers Eni’s carbon work with Enel’s industrial CO2 capture project, an Italian first, for the removal of 2.5 tonnes of gas per hour at the Brindisi thermal power station. The pilot plant will be ready in the autumn of 2009.

Eni is implementing a project to inject 8,000 tonnes of CO2 a year at the depleted Stogit field at Cortemaggiore.

The integration of the two projects entails the creation at Brindisi of a system to capture and liquefiy the greenhouse gas for transport to Cortemaggiore.