Preem lets contract for renewable fuels plant at Gothenburg refinery

Swedish refiner Preem AB, a wholly owned subsidiary of Corral Petroleum Holdings AB, Stockholm, has let a contract to Haldor Topsoe AS to provide process technology for a grassroots renewable fuels plant to be built at its 125,000-b/d refinery in Gothenburg, Sweden.

As part of the contract, Haldor Topsoe will license its proprietary HydroFlex renewable fuel technology as well as supply basic engineering, proprietary equipment, catalysts, and technical services for the unit to enable the refinery’s production of clean, renewable diesel and jet fuel, the service provider said.

Scheduled for startup in 2024, the new 16,000-b/d unit—which will be completely dedicated to producing renewable fuels from tall oil, tallow, and other renewable feedstocks—will produce about 1 million cu m/year of fuels, which corresponds to about 25% of Sweden’s estimated consumption of renewable fuels in 2030 and will enable reduced carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions from cars and planes by 2.5 million tonnes/year, according to Haldor Topsoe.

Alongside awarding the contract for the new unit, Preem also has signed a letter of intent with Scandinavian Airlines, or SAS, to bring the unit’s production of renewable jet fuel to market, Haldor Topsoe said.

A value of the technology licensing contract was not disclosed.

The Gothenburg renewable fuels plant comes as part of Preem’s broader plan to become the world's first climate-neutral petroleum and biofuels company with net zero emissions across its entire value chain before 2045. The operator also said it plans to increase its renewable fuel production to 5 million tpy by 2030.

As part of its net-zero emissions program, Preem and US-based project developer Beowulf Energy LLC, New York, also recently let a contract to McDermott International Inc. to provide front-end engineering design for the partners’ plan to build a residue hydrocracking plant—or residue oil conversion complex (ROCC)—at Preem’s 220,000-b/d refinery in Lysekil, Sweden, to enable the refinery to upgrade as much heavy oil as possible into sulfur-free gasoline and diesel fuels to help meet rising demand (OGJ Online, Jan. 27, 2020).

Preem also confirmed in 2019 that it intends to build a full-scale carbon capture plant at the Lysekil refinery to reduce CO₂ emissions by one-third by 2025 following a demonstration project at the site that began in 2019 and will run to 2021 (OGJ Online, Mar. 4, 2019).