Italy’s Saipem has won an engineering, procurement and fabrication (EPF) contract for a carbon capture unit at Finnish company Ren-Gas’s Power-to-Gas project in Tampere, it is reported. The contract was announced on September 16, 2026.
The contract scope reportedly covers engineering, procurement and fabrication of Saipem’s Bluenzyme™ 200 carbon capture solution, along with installation and commissioning advisory services. Ren-Gas’s Tampere project is a Power-to-Gas facility that combines captured CO2 with green hydrogen produced via electrolysis to produce e-methane (synthetic renewable gas), with the output reportedly to be supplied through existing gas infrastructure as fuel for medium- and heavy-duty freight transport in Germany. The EPF contract is a conditional agreement that takes effect once Ren-Gas reaches a final investment decision (FID) on the Tampere project.
The Tampere e-methane facility is reported to have a production capacity of approximately 200 GWh (gigawatt-hours) of synthetic renewable fuel per year. The EPF contract applies Saipem’s Bluenzyme™ 200, an enzyme-based carbon capture technology built on its proprietary CO2 Solutions technology, and is a follow-on contract after Ren-Gas announced its adoption of the technology in December 2024. The announcement was made on September 16, 2026.
Finland is pursuing a strategy to reduce reliance on fossil fuels through renewable-based green hydrogen and synthetic gas production and contribute to Europe’s renewable gas supply chain, and this project is a concrete example of that strategy in action.
E-methane produced via Power-to-Gas has the advantage of being usable within existing natural gas infrastructure — pipelines, storage and end-use equipment — making it a practical decarbonization pathway for injecting renewable-based gas into existing supply networks without large new infrastructure investment. The enzyme-based carbon capture technology adopted in this project (Bluenzyme) differentiates itself from conventional amine-based carbon capture, and its increasing application in commercial projects could reshape the competitive landscape of the carbon capture technology market. The fact that the contract takes effect only after the client’s FID reflects a typical approach in smaller renewable gas projects, where EPC/EPF contractors sign agreements ahead of final financing confirmation to shorten project preparation time. Targeting Germany’s medium- and heavy-duty freight fuel demand, this project is also a concrete example of renewable methane being used as a decarbonization tool for the road freight sector in Europe. The structure in which an Italian engineering firm participates in a small-scale Finnish renewable energy project also shows active cross-border collaboration on renewable energy technology and engineering within Europe.
The timing of Ren-Gas’s final investment decision (FID) on the Tampere project is the most important next milestone, as this EPF contract only takes effect once FID is reached. Whether the actual construction start and target startup date will be disclosed following FID is also worth watching. In addition, if the Bluenzyme enzyme-based carbon capture technology is successfully validated in commercial operation on this project, whether it will be rolled out to other European Power-to-Gas projects, and whether the terms of the e-methane supply contract to Germany (volume, price, duration, etc.) will become concrete, also bear watching.