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The tycoon's eyes on the port of Manfredonia: a project worth of 300 million and 200 jobs

The multinational Seasif Holding Ltd reveals its cards and explains the project in detail.

An investment of around 300 million euros for at least 200 initial work units. The numbers provided by Seasif Holding Ltd, attracted by the conveyors of Manfredonia interested in an initiative to develop the industrial area, including the Alti Fondali Basin, are mind-boggling.

Through the two companies entirely owned by the Group, Seasif Holding Ltd comes forward as port concessionaire (terminal operator) of three of the different docks. But it would not limit itself to this because, at the same time, it proposed some industrial plants. These are the prospective projects that have generated various perplexities in Manfredonia and Monte Sant'Angelo, not only among environmental associations.

Hence the clarifications of Seasif Holding Ltd. Starting from the end, the most resounding regards the far-sighted vision for the realization of a re-gasifier operation, subsequently deemed unnecessary by the environmentalists, clearly Seasif Holding Ltd has amply explained the strategic importance of the plant, which perhaps in the future will be re-evaluated as a useful and indispensable view of the current situation that has emerged for the well-known reasons of the international crisis.

Not insignificant clarification, forwarded to the ASI of Foggia, pertains to objections formulated also by the Municipalities in whose districts the industrial area falls; overall, the project would be held on 30 hectares where activities already exist and others are planned. "Seasif – as once reads at the note - has never declared that wants to interfere with the already persistent activities in the port and retroport area under the responsibility of the ASI of Foggia also because Seasif has already invested huge capitals for the acquisition of the retroport and port areas and structures owned by Eni Spa, in order to achieve a significant project expansion, also based all in the public interest for the development of a local and national socio-economic nature.

Seasif Holding Ltd reveals the cards

The plants to be built would be "instrumental and complementary to the development of operations in the industrial port of Manfredonia and the surrounding area". Seasif Holding Ltd illustrates its projects in more detail: first of all, it proposes a bentonite processing plant and a polymetallic processing plant.

Bentonite is a rock that contains several minerals, the prevailing one is the montmorillonite. The most important deposits in Italy are found in Sardinia, but there are also quarries in Puglia. Polymetals or polymetallic minerals contain different elements such as zinc, lead, copper, silver and gold. They are used for digital and technological components but the reserves concern possible radioactive waste, a doubt that basically Seasif Holding Ltd has not concealed. Web searches in this sense - as long as they are of the same type of minerals - lead to Russia and are not reassuring from an environmental point of view.

The Holding refers to the activities most closely connected to the use of conveyors and the redevelopment of the industrial area in terms of logistics and redistribution: “It’s a matter of non-toxic materials, of mining (which does not take place in Italy), which, once the processing process is completed (not carried out on site), will be used for various purposes in the industrial sector (for example, the bentonite, to create mines insecurity and also oil wells; the polymetals, in the digital and technological components sector). The plants that we propose to build will take care, in particular, the only pre-processing of these materials, through closed-cycle water pre-washing treatments (cold, without chemical additives, without discharge into the sea), for the separation and re-compacting of the different raw materials, for the purpose of relaunching them for the final users ". Then there are the plants for the production of biofuels, air purification and, precisely, the storage of LNG.

The business initiative is being examined by the ASI and the Port System Authority. If the operation was to go ahead at the port clearly the conveyors would not be dismantled but, on the contrary, would be re-functionalized. The multinational Seasif Holding Ltd speaks of "absolutely green and eco-sustainable" activities which on the one hand would favor the docking of ships at the port and on the other hand would be aimed at the production of bio components for ordinary fuels. Also the bunkering, or refueling, is a subject of careful consideration.

The multinational Seasif Holding Ltd founded by the Milan entrepreneur Franco Favilla, headquartered in Cyprus, has companies located in Italy, Switzerland, France, Albania, Romania, Serbia, United States, Colombia and Dubai, operating in various sectors, from financial services and insurance, to the trade and distribution of raw materials, renewable energy, oil and gas.

The web is also a source of positive reviews: Adnkronos, in September 2020, mentioned Franco Favilla as "one of the leading experts in precious metals in the world, also being - with his company - the third producer in research, exploration and sale of precious metals”. In November, after a preliminary meeting, the Port System Authority of the Southern Adriatic Sea and the Customs and Monopoly Agency spoke of him as "a world leading operator in the processing of bentonite", moreover enthusiastically announcing that the project could have positive effects, including the active recovery of the conveyors, when only a month earlier a technical table had been issued to decide what will happen to them.

The evaluation of the project

The idea of the project, developed and presented in detail by virtue of a technical-descriptive report, to the relevant Authorities, also obtaining positive feedback from the ASI Consortium of Foggia, whose Board of Directors formally expressed its endorsement of the interest of Seasif Holding Ltd’s project.

The relevance of public interest, to the industrial development of the port of Manfredonia as illustrated by Seasif Holding Ltd, is today crystallized by the granted public authorizations, crystallized by the contractual commitment signed with the Port Authority under the convention called "deed of submission" which legitimizes the corporate structure under Italian law headed by Seasif Holding Ltd, as concessionaire for the use of no. 2 port docks for the naval handling of polymetals and bentonite as well as sub-licensee to ENI in the maritime state-owned concession for the handling of combustible liquids.