New Neste biodiesel plant inaugurated

The official inauguration of a new 100 million (US$133.6 million) biodiesel plant that has been under construction for the last 18 months, at Finlands Neste Oil refinery at Porvoo took place May 31. The celebrations at the Porvoo site included the opening of a 700 million (US$935.4 million) diesel production line and the 40th anniversary of the company’s Technology Centre. The refinery, which is one of the most advanced in Europe, will improve the company’s overall refining margin significantly, as it will convert low-value heavy fuel oil into premium-quality diesel fuel and give a total output of approximately 1 million tons per annum of sulfur-free diesel. The new biodiesel plant is the first to produce second-generation biodiesel based on Neste Oil’s proprietary Next Generation Biomass To Liquid (NExBTL) technology. The new plant will be capable of producing 170,000 tons per annum of NExBTL diesel fuel from a flexible mix of vegetable oil and animal fat. “The fact of the matter is that moving people and goods is an essential part of today’s world. Our duty as an oil company is to produce products that make traffic and transport as clean as human ingenuity and technological development allows,” says Neste Oil President and Chief Executive Officer Risto Rinne. (May 31, 2007)