Neste wraps major turnaround of Porvoo refinery

Neste Corp. has concluded a major 2-month planned maintenance turnaround ahead of time at its 10-million tonne/year (tpy) refinery in the Kilpilahti industrial area of Porvoo, Finland, about 20 miles east of Helsinki.

Initiated on Apr. 1 with the shutdown of process units and originally scheduled to run for 9 weeks, the turnaround was completed as of June 5, with the refinery now online and processing crude oil as well as renewable and circular raw materials into more than 100 different products for global customers, Neste said.

In addition to a host of unidentified regulatory inspections, the turnaround involved maintenance works on about 5,000 pieces of equipment, as well as asset improvement initiatives unable to be completed while the refinery was in operation, said Jori Sahlsten, senior vice-president of Neste’s refinery and terminal operations for Porvoo’s oil products business.

Other works specifically focused on pressure equipment, rotating equipment, and pipelines, Sahlsten confirmed.

Despite the refinery’s entire shutdown for the major turnaround, the Kilpilahti harbor in Porvoo and the refinery’s distribution terminal continued to operate normally, with product deliveries to customers uninterrupted across the period, the operator said.

Completion of the turnaround—which required an overall investment of about €390 million— comes as part of Neste’s commitment to securing the safety, reliability, and competitiveness of its Porvoo operations, as well as contributes to the company’s ambitions to make the Porvoo site Europe’s most sustainable refinery by 2030 and reach carbon-neutral production by 2035, Neste said.

Additionally, buses and heavy machinery used by the 7,600 workers involved in the turnaround were powered by the operator’s proprietary Neste MY Renewable Diesel, helping to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions at the site.

Neste’s previous reduction of its turnaround interval to a shorter cycle of 2.5-3 years from a former 5-year interval has also enabled the operator with more flexibility to implement investments under its ongoing transformation of the Porvoo refinery into a leading renewable and circular solutions refining hub by the mid-2030s, said Markku Korvenranta, executive vice-president of Neste’s oil products business.

Formally announced in December 2023, Porvoo’s planned transformation will proceed in phases and, upon completion, will equip the site with a long-term capacity potential of about 3 million tpy for renewable and circular products (OGJ Online, May 14, 2024).