Neste decides to invest in liquefied waste plastic upgrading unit at its Porvoo refinery
Neste Corporation, Press Release, 15 June 2023 at 2.00 p.m. (EET)
Photo: Neste's complex refinery in Porvoo, Finland, offers excellent opportunities for transforming and reusing existing assets and processes for new purposes, such as upgrading liquefied waste plastic into high-quality petrochemical feedstock. Source: Neste
- Investment of 111 million euros
- Important milestone in scaling up chemical recycling
Neste has made the final investment decision to commence construction of upgrading facilities for liquefied plastic waste at its Porvoo refinery in Finland. With the investment of 111 million euros, Neste will build the capacity to upgrade 150,000 tons of liquefied waste plastic per year. Upgrading is one of the three processing steps turning liquefied waste plastic into high-quality feedstock for new plastics: pretreatment, upgrading and refining. The investment is part of a broader project (PULSE*), which has received an EU Innovation Fund grant of 135 million euros if fully implemented and is targeting a total capacity of 400,000 tons per year.
Pretreatment and upgrading of liquefied waste plastic play an important role in Neste’s approach to chemical recycling. They allow the company to increase flexibility for processing lower-quality plastic waste and scale up processing the liquefied waste plastic into high-quality petrochemical feedstock in its existing refinery in Porvoo.
“We have developed our capability to process circular raw material at the Porvoo refinery over the recent years and are now set to build a respective facility. The new facility processing 150,000 tons of liquefied waste plastic, is planned to be finalized in the first half of 2025,” states Markku Korvenranta, Executive Vice President in Neste’s Oil Products.
The project will see Neste building new assets at the Porvoo refinery, but also leveraging existing assets through retrofitting, to scale-up chemical recycling fast and efficiently. The upgraded liquefied waste plastic will then be processed in the conventional refinery in which it will replace a portion of the fossil resources processed at the Porvoo refinery.
Required preparation works at the Porvoo refinery were successfully completed during the first half of 2023, enabling the construction work to commence without any delay.
*) PULSE = Pretreatment and Upgrading of Liquefied waste plastic to Scale up circular Economy. Project PULSE is funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or European Climate Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency (CINEA). Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them. Neste is the sole beneficiary of Project PULSE’s funding by the European Union.
Neste Corporation
Susanna Sieppi
Vice President, Communications
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Neste in brief
Neste (NESTE, Nasdaq Helsinki) creates solutions for combating climate change and accelerating a shift to a circular economy. We refine waste, residues and innovative raw materials into renewable fuels and sustainable feedstock for plastics and other materials. We are the world’s leading producer of sustainable aviation fuel and renewable diesel and developing chemical recycling to combat the plastic waste challenge. We aim at helping customers to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions with our renewable and circular solutions by at least 20 million tons annually by 2030. Our ambition is to make the Porvoo oil refinery in Finland the most sustainable refinery in Europe by 2030. We are introducing renewable and recycled raw materials such as liquefied waste plastic as refinery raw materials. We have committed to reaching carbon-neutral production by 2035, and we will reduce the carbon emission intensity of sold products by 50% by 2040. We also have set high standards for biodiversity, human rights and supply chain. We have consistently been included in the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices and the Global 100 list of the world’s most sustainable companies. In 2022, Neste's revenue stood at EUR 25.7 billion. Read more: neste.com
