One of the advantages of having your own industrial complex is that you can come up with the street names yourself. So the brick road along which a new installation for biokerosene is being built is called ‘Road to the future’.
The way to the future is via biofuels, they think at Neste. The oil company, originally from Finland, has developed into the world market leader in biofuels in recent decades. The company is firmly convinced that these are one of the solutions for sustainable and climate-friendly transport.
Neste is going big. The Maasvlakte is home to Europe’s largest biorefinery, where 1.4 million tons of renewable fuel and basic products for the chemical industry are produced annually. This summer Neste announced an investment of 1.9 billion euros to increase the capacity to 2.7 million tons, of which 1.2 million tons will be biokerosene that will help make aviation more sustainable.
Fast growth
The group is growing rapidly: when Bart Leenders, worldwide responsible for the production of renewable products, started at Neste thirteen years ago, the production location on the Maasvlakte was little more than a sand plain and some concrete foundations. The factory was up and running two years later, and it has now grown into a refinery like there are countless in the Botlek area: thick pipelines, towering cracker columns, gigantic pressure vessels and storage tanks, and its own harbor where tankers deliver raw materials and transport fuels.
Apparently there is little difference with the installations that can be seen everywhere in the port area. But the processes inside the hissing installations are different: Neste does not use crude oil, but animal waste fats, used cooking fat and other residues from the food and cosmetics industry. ‘Their waste is an excellent raw material for us,’ says Leenders. The company is also working on methods to use waste from grease pits.
Because Neste’s raw materials have a biological origin, the company states that they achieve CO2 savings of 80 to 90 percent. ‘Thanks to our technology, fossil raw materials can remain in the ground’, says Leenders. ‘We use the carbon that is already in the system and want to add as little to it as possible.’
Not everyone agrees: organizations such as Milieudefensie and Transport & Environment say that Neste’s use of palm oil, among other things, leads to unbridled logging and loss of biodiversity, and that the origin of many sources is unclear. The group objects that it has always been transparent about the (certified) origin of its palm oil and that it will stop using it next year. Milieudefensie was unable to comment on this decision last week.
The raw materials now supplied by tanker are oily liquids in colors ranging from deep red to the golden green of olive oil. From the landing stage, they are stored in huge tanks before being transported to the pre-treatment plants, which remove contaminants that are harmful to the catalysts in the refinery.
120 gas stations in the Netherlands
The final product is an aqueous liquid that is sold as biodiesel (so-called HVO) to customers in the transport sector. Neste also has approximately 120 filling stations in the Netherlands where motorists can fill up with biodiesel.
This diesel is not completely climate neutral. This is mainly due to the use of hydrogen. It is produced from natural gas, a process in which a lot of CO2 is released. ‘We are working on reducing the share of gray hydrogen,’ says Leenders. Part of the CO2 will soon be stored under the seabed.
In addition, the group is working on the production of green hydrogen from sustainable electricity. Six electrolysers are being built on the site for a first pilot installation. Because there is not yet enough green energy for the time being, it will take some time before this route can be used on a large scale. The electrolysis installation that is there now is the first in the port of Rotterdam, says Leenders. But its capacity is limited: it can meet about 1 percent of Neste’s hydrogen needs. In ten to fifteen years, all hydrogen must be sustainable, and then the biofuel will be largely CO2-free, says Leenders.
Will the factory that is being built now not be superfluous in fifteen years’ time? Europe wants a ban on combustion engines in new passenger cars from 2035, possibly followed by trucks. So what should Neste do with its biodiesel? ‘If we were afraid that there was no demand for our fuel, we would not be investing two billion now,’ says Leenders.
Aviation fuel
Production will also slowly shift from diesel to biokerosene over time. ‘The demand for liquid fuels will remain in aviation for a long time to come, because long-haul flights on batteries are not possible for the time being.’ Neste will also supply more and more raw materials to the chemical industry, which also needs to become more sustainable.
And what about the raw materials? If the world soon switches to artificial meat, the supply of animal fats may come to a halt. So what does the factory run on? In the future, the company also wants to use waste plastic as a raw material, says Leenders. Through a chemical process, any kind of plastic can be converted into a base oil that can serve as feed for existing refineries. ‘The volume is not that big yet, but we are serious about it with our strategy and technology.’
Together we have a huge climate challenge, says Leenders. “So all the carbon that we can leave in the earth, we have to leave there. And above all, let’s use all the solutions that are available and work together as much as possible.’
- Who: Neste, producer of biofuels
- Founded : 1948
- Where: Maasvlakte and Hoofddorp (head office)
- Number of employees: 4,872 (2021)
- Turnover: 15.2 billion euros