Neste Oil celebrated the grand opening of Europe’s
largest renewable diesel refinery in Rotterdam, the start-up of the Neste Oil’s
Rotterdam refinery took place in September 2011.
Neste Oil’s refinery in
Rotterdam is an ISCC-certified refinery produces premium-quality NExBTL
renewable diesel, the cleanest and highest-quality renewable diesel that
outperforming traditional biodiesels and even the best fossil
diesels.
“This refinery represents a huge investment in our
economy and provides a boost to sustainable growth. It will help the
Netherlands realise its ambitions as a leader of the bio-based economy and a
major biomass hub in Europe,” said
Maxime Verhagen, Dutch deputy prime minister and minister for economic affairs,
Agriculture and Innovation.
Neste Oil’s refinery in Rotterdam has an annual
production capacity of 800,000 metric tons or 1 billion liters of renewable
diesel and cost around EUR 670 million to build. The annual volume produced in
Rotterdam will be enough for more than half a million cars to run continuously
on pure NExBTL.
The emission benefits of the refinery’s output will
reduce greenhouse gases by a total of over 1.5 million tons annually.
The facility is capable of using Neste Oil’s wide
feedstock base consisting of a variety of vegetable oils, by-products of
vegetable oil refining (e.g. stearin), as well as waste oils and fats which all
meet the stringent sustainability criteria included in the EU Renewable Energy
Directive.
The Rotterdam refinery is also capable of utilizing
future feedstocks like algae oil. Neste Oil is involved in developing
technologies and processes for growing microalgae on an industrial scale as a
raw material for use in fuel, food, and chemical production.
Recently, Neste Oil announced that it will build a pilot
plant to produce waste-based microbial oil at its Porvoo refinery. It will be
the first pilot plant in Europe designed to produce microbial oil for use in
manufacturing renewable fuel from waste-based raw materials.
With the start-up of the Rotterdam refinery, the
production capacity of Neste Oil’s renewable diesel refineries totals
approximately 2 million metric tons annually and helps meet the world’s growing
energy needs with low-emission renewable fuel.
“Through hard work and cooperation among nearly 15
partners we have built this Europe’s largest and finest renewable diesel
refinery in just two years. The government of the Netherlands as well as Dutch
authorities played an important role in supporting Neste Oil’s investment in a
renewable fuels plant which has been one of the biggest investments in the
Netherlands over the recent years,” said Matti Lievonen, president &
CEO of Neste Oil.
By GreentechLead.com Team
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