Neste opens Singapore office

Finnish refiner Neste Oil Corp. recently opened an office in Asia’s oil trading hub Singapore, to support the building of an 800,000-ton a year biodiesel plant in Singapore which will start operating in 2010. While oil refining remains Neste’s central business, the firm also aims to become the world’s leading producer of renewable diesel fuel. Neste also will build a biodiesel plant, its fourth such plant investment so far, in the Dutch city of Rotterdam to meet growing demand for biofuels. The plant will cost about 670 million (US$1.06 billion) and will have an annual capacity of 800,000 tons. Construction will begin immediately and is due for completion in 2011. Neste already has one 170,000 ton per year plant producing its proprietary biodiesel NExBTL operating in Porvoo, southern Finland, and it is building a second similar one next to it, due to be ready next year. (June 16, 2008)