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REFINERY NEWS ROUNDUP: Renewables projects in Europe

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Refiners in Europe are taking decisions on new renewables projects.

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Shell has taken a final investment decision to build the 200-MW Holland Hydrogen I electrolysis plant, on course to be Europe's largest renewable hydrogen facility once operational in 2025.

The electrolysis plant will be capable of producing 60,000 kg/day of hydrogen from its base on the Tweede Maasvlakte at the Port of Rotterdam.

"Renewable hydrogen will play a pivotal role in the energy system of the future and this project is an important step in helping hydrogen fulfill that potential," Shell Executive Vice President, Emerging Energy Solutions, Anna Mascolo, said.

Feedstock electricity for the plant will come from the under-construction 759-MW Hollandse Kust Noord offshore wind farm. Crosswind, a consortium of Shell and Rotterdam utility Eneco, was awarded the HKN concession under a zero-subsidy contract.

Hydrogen from the new plant will supply Shell Energy and Chemicals Park Rotterdam via the new HyTransPort pipeline, replacing some of the grey hydrogen used in the refinery, formerly known as Pernis. That would partly decarbonize production of diesel, gasoline and jet fuel, Shell said.

Meanwhile, sustainable aviation fuel production is in focus in Europe.

The UK has laid out plans for its aviation sector to be net-zero by 2050, reaffirming existing targets for 10% of jet fuel demand in the country to be met by sustainable aviation fuel two decades beforehand.

Under a 'Jet Zero strategy' announced by the transport ministry, the government also committed to having at least five commercial-scale SAF plants under construction in the country by 2025. As part of the target, it said it wanted UK domestic aviation and airports to be net-zero and zero-emission, respectively, by 2040.

Portugal's Navigator Company and Hamburg-based P2X-Europe are to join forces to create P2X-Portugal, an industrial-scale production facility for SAF. A final investment decision for the up to Eur600 million ($612 million) project is planned for mid-2023 with an integrated production site at Navigator's Figueira da Foz site to produce up to 40,000 mt/year of synthetic products from 2026, it said.

The project, granted "Project of National Interest" status by the Portuguese government, leverages Iberia's highly competitive renewable energy with "several hundred MW of new renewable energy capacity" and biogenic CO2 captured in Navigator's biorefinery using sustainable forests, it said.

Elsewhere, PKN Orlen, Poland's largest refiner, is to acquire part of Basell Orlen Polyolefins' LDPE production business. PKN will acquire assets including LDPE production capacity of 100,000 mt/year as well as its sales and customer service on the Polish market.

As a result, PKN will be the sole producer of LDPE in Poland covering roughly one third of the country's annual 300,000 mt demand. LDPE is used in the production of films, bags, canisters and food packaging.

Refinery Total capacity Country Owner Upgrade Completion Gdansk 210,000 Poland Lotos Convent/Hydrogen 2025 Plock 326,000 Poland PKN Orlen Conventional 2022 Trzebinia 7,400 Poland PKN Orlen Hydrogen 2021 Jedlicze 25,000 Poland PKN Orlen Biofuel NA Litvinov 108,000 Czech Unipetrol Conventional 2022 Petromidia 114,000 Romania Rompetrol Conventional 2022 Burgas 190,000 Bulgaria Lukoil Conventional NA Izmir 220,000 Turkey Tupras Bigofuel 2026 Kirikkale 108,000 Turkey Tupras Conventional NA Star 212,000 Turkey Socar Conventional NA Orlen Lietuva 204,000 Lithuania PKN Orlen Conventional 2024 Pancevo 98,000 Serbia NIS Conventional 2024 Rijeka 90,000 Croatia INA Conventional 2023 Sisak 44,000 Croatia INA Bioethanol NA Brod 108,000 Bosnia Optima Conventional 2020 Donges 219,000 France TotalEnergies Conventional 2023 Grandpuits 101,000 France TotalEnergies Renewables 2024 Antwerp 150,000 Belgium TotalEnergies Biofuel NA Huelva 220,000 Spain Cepsa Conventional/Biofuel NA San Roque 245,000 Spain Cepsa Biofuel NA Cartagena 220,000 Spain Repsol Biofuel 2023 Bilbao 220,000 Spain Repsol Hydrogen 2024 Tarragona 186,000 Spain Repsol Renewables 2025 Sines 220,000 Portugal Galp Conventional NA Sines 220,000 Portugal Galp Renewables NA Haifa 197,000 Israel Bazan Group Expansion NA Corinth 180,000 Greece Motor Oil Conventional 2022 Petrobrazi 90,000 Romania Joint Conventional 2023 Petromidia 100,000 Romania Rompetrol Conventional 2023 Petrotel 48,000 Romania Lukoil Hydrogen NA Fawley 270,000 UK ExxonMobil Convent/Hydrogen NA Humber 221,000 UK Phillips66 Renewables 2021 Grangemouth 150,000 UK Petroineos Renewables 2030 Stanlow 205,500 UK Essar Oil Renweables 2023 ISAB 321,000 Italy Lukoil Conventional NA Venice 400,000 Italy Eni Upgrade Sarroch 300,000 Italy Saras Hydrogen NA Schwedt 230,000 Germany Joint Conventional NA Miro 310,000 Germany Joint Hydrogen 2021 Heide 90,000 Germany Klesch Hydrogen 2025 Lingen 96,000 Germany BP Hydrogen/SAF 2024 Rhineland 327,000 Germany Shell Hydrogen 2021 Bayernoil 206,000 Germany Joint Biofuel NA Schwechat 192,000 Austria OMV Biofuel 2023 Burghausen 76,000 Austria OMV Conventional 2022 Cressier 68,000 Switzerland Varo Solar 2022 Brofjorden 220,000 Sweden Preem Renewables NA Porvoo 260,000 Finland Neste Renewables 2023 Fredericia 70,000 Denmark Postlane Partners Hydrogen 2025 Rotterdam 88,000 Netherlands Gunvor Biofuel NA Pernis 404,000 Netherlands Shell Biofuel NA

Porto Romano 150,000 Albania Joint launch 2025 Nazli 28,000 Turkey Ersan launch 2022 Aliaga NA Turkey Steas launch NA

** Repsol will build a new plant to produce 15,000 mt/year of ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE) at Puertollano. The plant, which should be operational in 2024, will be the first of its kind in Spain to produce the "super polymer", known for its high tenacity and high impact resistance.

** Repsol will build a new plant at Tarragona to produce 27,000 mt/year of cross-linkable polyethylene (XLPE) from mid-2024. It will also invest Eur18 million in an upgrade of its polyols unit, due to conclude in Q4 2023.

** OMV shut down units at the Burghausen refinery for planned general maintenance, set to last between June 22 and Aug. 7. Expansion work will be carried out to increase ethylene and propylene production by around 50,000 mt/year.

** Bosnia's Brod refinery has started construction of a bitumen unit. The refinery, which has been offline since 2019 for an upgrade, had been expected to restart once it was connected to a gas pipeline, allowing it to switch to gas-fired power operations. The line was connected in December 2021, but the plant remains offline. The owner has not given a reason why. A solar power facility at the plant has also been built to help power operations.

** The naphtha treatment complex (platformer) at Motor Oil Hellas' Corinth refinery in Greece is expected to be ready by the fourth quarter of 2022. Construction started in 2020.

** Slovakia's Slovnaft is modernizing and expanding polypropylene production at the Bratislava refinery. The capacity of the PP3 unit will increase by 33,000 mt/year to 300,000 mt/year. Construction is expected to start in the summer of 2023 and complete in October 2024.

** Poland's PKN Orlen has signed a contract with Linde to build a new oxygen and nitrogen production unit at its Plock refinery. The unit will produce 38,500 cu m/hour of oxygen and 75,000 cu m/hour of nitrogen, supplying gas feedstock for the new Olefin III complex and other installations at Plock. The project is due to be completed by the start of 2025.

A visbreaking unit at PKN's Plock refinery is due to be completed by the end of 2022. The unit will have a capacity to produce 200,000 mt/year of diesel. Ongoing modernization of the hydrocracking and diesel hydrodesulfurization units at Plock will also increase the refinery's diesel production capacity.

Separately, PKN Orlen has bought a license and base design from US engineering company KBR for a potential bottom-of-the-barrel project. If PKN takes a final investment decision, it will construct a production complex using solvent de-asphalting and fluid catalytic cracking technologies.

** Romania's Rompetrol expects the new cogeneration plant at the Petromidia refinery to be online by July 2023. The Kazakh-Romanian Energy Investment Fund, or FIEKR, has raised Eur83 million syndicated credit facility for financing the project, which represents over 65% of the overall investment, estimated at $148 million. In 2020, the fund signed an engineering, procurement and construction contract for Turkey's Calik Enerji to build the cogeneration plant, and in June 2021 it started the execution of the contract. The new facility will be fueled mainly by natural gas and up to 25% by the fuel gas from refining technological processes. Its efficiency will reach 92%. It will have 80 MW capacity, out of which the largest amount will be used to cover Petromidia's electricity needs, and the rest will be used to heat water for the town of Navodari's heating system. In 2020, two other projects were approved aimed at modernizing the Petromidia refinery. They comprised building a diesel dewaxing unit which will allow the refinery to improve the production of winter diesel and increase the production of special aviation fuel. In addition, the refinery is working on increasing by more than 30% its polymer production by converting the high-density polyethylene installation into a polypropylene installation.

** Polish refiner Grupa Lotos said that Italian contractor KT-Kinectics Technology was given notice to proceed on Lotos's key hydrocracking base oils, or HBO, project at the Gdansk refinery, which will help the company diversify into second- and third-generation base oils. The installation will have the capacity to produce 400,000 mt of group II base oils and is expected to be commissioned in the first half of 2025. The heart of the HBO project will be an isodewaxing/isofinishing, or IDW/IF, unit, which will rely on hydrogen-based processes used by oil hydrocrackers. The company continued work to replace the Claus plant furnaces to improve the efficiency of the hydrogen sulfide combustion unit, due to be completed early 2023.

** France's Donges plant has been building a new desulfurization unit. In addition, a new railway is set to start operations in October enabling other rail traffic to bypass the Donges site. Work on the railway, which has been a condition for modernizing the refinery, started in 2020. The French government, local authorities, railway operator SNCF and TotalEnergies signed a memorandum of intent in 2016 to build the railway bypassing the refinery. TotalEnergies has said previously that, following the bypass agreement, it would proceed with the planned upgrade. The bypass was due to be ready in 2022. Kinetics Technology said it had been awarded the contract for building the 40,000 b/d hydrotreater.

** Croatia's Rijeka refinery expects to complete works on a new residue upgrade complex, including a delayed coker, in 2022. Works on the upgrade started in 2020.

** Azerbaijan's state oil company Socar is looking to expand the capacity of its 212,000 b/d Star refinery in Turkey. Socar said it could expand Star's capacity to 13 million mt/year (261,000 b/d) by means of "flexibilities" in the refinery's design.

** PKN Orlen has signed an EPC contract with UK-based Petrofac to build a bottom-of-the-barrel unit at its Mazeikiu refinery in Lithuania. The unit is expected to be completed by the end of 2024 and will allow a rise in the production of high-margin products to 86% of the total, from 73%.

** Orlen Unipetrol will expand the steam cracker at its Litvinov refinery to boost petrochemical production. A new steam cracker furnace will be built by Technip Energies and commissioned in 2022. The steam cracker, comprising 10 cracking furnaces, has production capacity of 545,000 mt/year of ethylene. The construction of an 11th furnace will boost that capacity to 585,000 mt/year. PKN Orlen has completed the Czech Crown 9.6 billion ($410 million) polyethylene 3 unit investment at Litvinov. The refinery's owner, Unipetrol, a 100%-owned PKN subsidiary, has taken charge of the black polyethylene unit, the second part of the investment. The first part, the natural polyethylene unit, was completed in April 2020. The polyethylene 3 unit, which can produce 270,000 mt/year of high density polyethylene, will replace production of one of the two existing production units with a capacity of 120,000 mt/year. Litvinov's polyethylene capacity will increase from 320,000 mt/year to 470,000 mt/year. PKN Orlen was launching construction of a unit at Litvinov to produce up to 26,000 mt/year of dicyclopentadiene, or DCPC, used in the automotive, construction and electronic industries. The unit is planned to be completed in the second half of 2022. Separately, McDermott International has been awarded a contract for engineering, procurement and construction management services for an upgrade of the hydrocracker at the Litvinov refinery.

** Turkish construction group Tekfen Insaat said that together with partner HMB Hallesche Mitteldeutsche Bau it has signed an EPC contract with Turkey's main refiner Tupras to construct a new sulfur recovery unit at the Kirikkale refinery.

Tekfen said the project would take 36 months to complete. It did not say when work was expected to start. Tupras' upgrade plans for its four refineries include new sulfur units at its three main refineries, Izmit, Izmir and Kirikkale. Tupras is also carrying out a revamp of the FCC unit at Izmit, which will include the installation of flue gas treatment and energy back recovery systems.

** OMV Petrom said it will invest approximately Eur70 million at its Petrobrazi refinery in Romania to replace the four coke drums. The replacements will take place between 2021 and 2023.

** Portugal's Galp will build a desulfurization unit with a processing capacity of 20,000 b/d at the Sines refinery. The project will allow the company to widen its crude slate.

** Greece's Hellenic Petroleum said in 2021 that Eur35 million had been approved for a capacity increase at the polypropylene production unit at Thessaloniki to 300,000 mt/year, with implementation targeted within two and a half years.

** Serbia's Pancevo refinery expects to complete its FCC project by 2023. The refinery also plans to build a unit to produce the octane enhancement chemical ETBE by 2024.

** Bulgaria's Burgas refinery has awarded a contract to US Lummus Technology for a 280,000 mt/year polypropylene plant. The contract includes a technology license as well as basic design engineering, training and services, and catalyst supply.

** ExxonMobil said it has "made a final investment decision to expand" the Fawley refinery in the UK to increase production of ultra low sulfur diesel by 45%, or 38,000 b/d. The more than $1 billion investment includes a hydrotreater to remove sulfur from diesel, supported by a hydrogen plant.

** Russian Lukoil plans to invest in its ISAB refinery in southern Italy.

Lukoil will invest $60 million in upgrades, including two hydrodesulfurization units.

** Israel's Haifa District Court has rejected an appeal by Haifa municipality along with six other neighboring communities and environmental groups against the proposed expansion of the Bazan refinery.

** Finnish refiner Neste will build a chemical recycling facility at its Porvoo refinery. The project aims to pretreat and upgrade liquified waste plastic and integrate the technologies into the refinery operations.

It targets 400,000 mt/year pretreatment capacities "contributing to Neste's goal of processing over 1 million mt of waste plastic per year from 2030 onwards." Investment decision is targeted for 2023 and gradual implementation expected to start in 2024.

Neste also is targeting a final investment decision in late 2023 for its "Sustainable Hydrogen and Recovery of Carbon" project for its Porvoo refinery.

The project includes a 50-MW electrolyzer to produce 8,000 mt/year of renewable hydrogen, along with a carbon capture plant that will capture 300,000-400,000 mt/year of CO2 from the company's existing hydrogen production unit. The project is currently in the feasibility study phase. Operations are planned to start in the mid-2020s. Neste is also developing a lignocellulosics project which aims to convert "forestry-based waste and residue raw materials into advanced biofuels" at the Porvoo refinery. Neste said that it will increase the use of renewable electricity at its Porvoo refinery. Approximately 40% of the electricity used at the refinery will be renewable wind power in 2025.

** Turkey's Tupras has signed a license agreement with Honeywell for the use of its UOP Ecofining technology to produce biofuels and other products from waste vegetable and animal oils at its 239,000 b/d Izmir refinery. The company plans to establish a new ecofining facility at Izmir capable of processing 8,300 barrels of raw waste per day into SAF, renewable diesel and other products.

** Shell has taken a final investment decision to build the 200-MW Holland Hydrogen I electrolysis plant, on course to be Europe's largest renewable hydrogen facility once operational in 2025. Hydrogen from the new plant is to supply the Shell Energy and Chemicals Park Rotterdam via the new HyTransPort pipeline, replacing some of the grey hydrogen used in the refinery, formerly known as Pernis.

Separately, Shell plans to build an 820,000 mt/year biofuel plant in Rotterdam at the site of Pernis to produce SAF and renewable diesel from waste. The plant is expected to start production in 2024 and will produce low-carbon fuels such as renewable diesel from used cooking oil, waste animal fat, and other industrial and agricultural residual products, using technology developed by Shell. The facility will not use virgin palm oil as a feedstock but will process vegetable oils such as rapeseed to supplement the waste feedstocks "until even more sustainable, advanced feedstocks are widely available."

** Finland's Neste said it has made the final investment decision to expand its Rotterdam renewables product refinery. The current capacity of the Rotterdam plant is 1.4 million mt/year, which will be expanded by another 1.3 million mt/year, reaching 2.7 million mt annually. Of it the capacity for producing SAF (SAF) will be 1.2 million mt. Neste aims to start up the new production unit during the first half of 2026. Neste's global renewables capacity is 3.3 million mt/year including its Singapore site. The ongoing expansion at Singapore and the joint venture with Marathon in Martinez, CA, that is still pending for closing, will increase the total production capacity of renewable products to 5.5 million mt by the end of 2023. When completed, the Rotterdam expansion project will further increase the company's total production capacity of renewable products to 6.8 million tons by the end of 2026. Separately, Germany's Sunfire has delivered the first modules of the world's biggest high-temperature electrolyzer to produce green hydrogen to Neste's Rotterdam refinery, it said in July 2022. The 2.6 MW MultiPLHY pilot project is to produce 60 kg/hour of hydrogen from early 2023. The Singapore facility will have a six-week turnaround in Q3 and the Rotterdam facility in Q4.

** Essar, the owner of the UK's Stanlow refinery, said it has received a hydrogen-powered furnace, which is the first in the UK. The furnace has been commissioned by Essar Oil UK "as it transitions to run its operations on hydrogen as part of HyNet, the UK's leading decarbonization cluster," it said in a statement. The furnace, which will run on 100% hydrogen fuel from 2026, "forms a central part of Essar's strategy at Stanlow to become the UK's first low-carbon refinery." The furnace will replace three gas-fired furnaces at the plant's crude distillation unit. Essar is also developing 300,000 cu m of biofuel storage capacity at the site, allowing customers to store, blend and distribute biofuels for the road, aviation and marine sectors. It will become the UK's largest biofuels storage facility when completed.

** A newly-installed hydrotreatment unit at Spain's A Coruna that processes vegetable and cooking oils is expected to boost biofuel output by 5,500 mt/year this year, with the volume rising to 10,500 mt/year by 2024.

** Repsol started construction May 2022 of a "decarbonization hub" at its Bilbao refinery which will see a 2,100 mt/year synthetic fuel plant and supporting hydrogen infrastructure come online from 2024. The plant, being developed alongside Saudi's Aramco, will combine CO2 from industrial processes with green hydrogen generated from the associated 10 MW electrolyzer at the site to produce diesel, kerosene and gasoline. The refinery plans to conclude its first hydrogen electrolyzer with a capacity of 2.5 MW in the second half of 2022. This could eventually be scaled up to 100 MW by 2025. A separate plant costing Eur20 million may be built to generate gas to feed the refinery from urban waste and should be online by 2025.

** Spain's Castellon will install a 60 MW hydrogen unit for a 2024 start-up with options to expand thereafter, BP Espana said June 22. The start date has been pushed back from a previous 2023 target. The refinery also has plans to triple SAF output to 15,000 b/d as part of an overall decarbonization program, according to press reports. BP declined to comment.

** OMV Petrom will start producing SAF (SAF) at its Petrobrazi refinery, which will become the first refinery in Romania to produce SAF. It expects the first test run volumes to be produced in July this year. The refinery will produce SAF by co-processing locally produced rapeseed oil. In the future it aims to increase the production capacities and produce sustainable fuels based on various waste feedstocks, such as used cooking oil. "Our goal is that, in 2030, to have an annual combined production of SAF and HVO (hydrotreated vegetable oil) of about 450 thousand tons," Radu Caprau, member of the Executive Board responsible for Refining & Marketing said.

** Repsol and partners Enerkem and Agbar have presented a project to transform 400,000 mt/year of urban waste to 220,000 mt/year methanol at Tarragona, which should start up in 2025 with an investment of Eur250 million. Spain's Tarragona has started on a series of energy transition projects, including the manufacture of biofuel for aviation and an advanced biofuels plant, which is already under construction. The refinery plans to build a 100-MW hydrogen electrolyzer by 2025.

** Gunvor is preparing to build a biofuel factory at its Rotterdam refinery, which will convert vegetable and animal oils, and fat into 700,000 mt/year of renewable diesel, according to local media reports. The plant will comprise pre-treatment unit and hydrogenation installation consisting of two units each with around 350,000 mt/year capacity. The new units will be located on the site of the former lubricants facility. Gunvor has been studying the potential installation of an HVO unit at the Rotterdam facility. Gunvor's Rotterdam refinery shut two crude processing units, one in 2019 and the other in 2020, and is developing new processes. Separately, Gunvor has agreed to partner with petrochemical group Dow to purify pyrolysis oil feedstocks derived from plastic waste, using an existing unit at its refinery site in Rotterdam. The venture will purify pyrolysis oil feedstock derived from plastic waste that are of sufficient quality to produce new polymers. Under the deal, Gunvor will supply cracker-ready feedstock to Dow in Europe from December 2021, which will be used to produce circular plastics for customers.

** Hungarian oil and gas group MOL will build a 10-MW electrolyzer for renewable hydrogen production at its Danube refinery in Szazhalombatta, Hungary. The electrolyzers from US company Plug Power will produce 1,600 mt/year of green hydrogen, with operations starting in 2023.

** OMV said that together with AEG Fuels it will supply SAF from its Schwechat refinery on-demand for the "general aviation segment" to be used as an alternative to conventional jet fuel at the Vienna International Airport.

SAF is produced at Schwechat by co-processing Austrian used cooking oil and is supplied via a direct pipeline connection to Vienna's international airport. OMV had also supplied the first batch of SAF to Vienna International Airport for fueling Austrian Airlines aircraft. The delivery followed the signing of a supply contract between the two companies in December 2021.

Schwechat has received the two main components for producing SAF -- the reactor and column. From mid-2023 up to 160,000 mt of liquid biomass will be converted into SAF using an innovative co-processing method, it said.

"The new reactor will process substances including vegetable oil together with other feedstocks in a procedure known as co-processing. This innovative process involves refining the biogenic feedstock via a hydrogenation process using hydrogen," OMV said. In the future, the process can be used for processing other feedstock such as used cooking oil or advanced bio-fuels. OMV plans to increase its SAF sales from around 2,000 mt this year to more than 700,000 mt/year by 2030.

Separately, OMV will build the country's largest electrolysis plant at the Schwechat refinery through a joint investment with Kommunalkredit Austria AG. The plant is expected to start in H2 2023. The 10 MW polymer electrolyte membrane electrolysis will produce up to 1,500 mt/year of green hydrogen.

** The UK's Humber refinery completed its first delivery of SAF under a supply agreement with British Airways and has announced a joint venture to develop retail hydrogen fueling stations in Europe, the company said in its Q1 2022 report. British Airways and Phillips 66 signed a multi-year supply agreement that will provide the airline with SAF produced at the Humber refinery. The SAF will be produced from sustainable waste feedstock at the Humber Refinery, which will deliver its SAF supply to British Airways via existing pipeline infrastructure that feeds directly into UK airports.

Phillips 66 said previously it secured more than GBP500,000 to switch industrial fired heaters from gas to low carbon hydrogen at its Humber refinery. The company is working with the UK's Gigastack consortium on a project that involves the use of renewable hydrogen at Humber to reduce the carbon content of fuels produced there. Separately, Phillips 66 said its UK refinery was moving to produce 5,000 b/d renewable diesel by 2024 after expanding capacity to 3,000 b/d from 1,000 b/d. Humber produced 1,000 b/d of renewable diesel in 2020, after starting production in 2019, S&P Global has reported.

** Germany's Bayernoil is looking at producing SAF from sewage sludge. It could convert 100,000 mt of sewage sludge into SAF annually under Project Bayosine. The processing, which involves pyrolisis, can be done in a new unit at the Vohburg site of the plant.

** Sweden's Preem aims to expand the HVO capacity at its Gothenburg plant from 320,000 cu m/year to 1.3 million cu m/year in 2026. "This is planned to take place in a completely new facility designed to produce renewable vehicle fuels and aviation fuels with great flexibility," it said. In its Lysekil plant, production of HVO from the Synsat plant "was the highest to date," the company said. Preem is rebuilding the existing Synsat plant, so it can produce renewable raw materials and replace part of the fossil production. It is expected to reach renewable production capacity of 950,000 cu m/year by 2024.

** Finland's UPM expects its Leuna biorefinery in Germany to be operational by the end of 2023 and ramp up in 2024. Construction of the facility, which will produce a range of 100% wood-based biochemicals, started in 2020. Its total annual capacity will be 220,000 mt bio-monoethylene glycol and lignin-based renewable functional fillers. It will also produce monopropylene glycol and industrial sugars made from sustainably harvested beechwood sourced regionally in Germany.

** Greece's Motor Oil Hellas said its Corinth refinery by 2030 aims to enhance its pure hydrogen infrastructure through demonstration and scale-up of green hydrogen. In the long term, it aims to be a "large producer of clean hydrogen".

** Spain's Cepsa would target developing 2 GW of green hydrogen capacity at San Roque and La Rabida. Cepsa and Spain-based utility Endesa signed an agreement to develop green hydrogen production in both refineries to replace natural gas, with the development awaiting European funding. The refineries would look to incorporate renewable power from a 7 GW pipeline of planned solar and wind capacity to produce the green hydrogen. Meanwhile more bio-feedstocks would be incorporated to produce hydrotreated vegetable oil, SAF and biochemicals, with a target of producing 2.5 million mt/year of biofuels by 2030 and 800,000 mt/year of SAF. Cepsa is to develop and produce SAF from waste, recycled used oils, and other sustainable plant-based feedstocks with airline operator Iberia. The deal signed by Cepsa and the Iberia Group will also see them investigate other alternative energies such as renewable hydrogen and electricity with the aim of promoting sustainable mobility for aircraft and the fleet of airport ground vehicles.

Cepsa has been producing biofuels in its refineries for more than 10 years and is already engaged in research to convert waste and used oils into fuels from renewable sources with a high energy value.

** BP plans to install a hydrogen unit at Spain's Castellon for a 2023 start-up, in conjunction with Spain's Iberdrola and Enagas. The refinery also plans to triple SAF output to 15,000 b/d, according to a February report in Castellon Plaza, citing Andres Geuvara de la Vega.

** France's TotalEnergies said it has "successfully started production" of SAF at its Gonfreville refinery in Normandy. The new site complements the biojet production capacities of the company's La Mede refinery and the Oudalle plant.

TotalEnergies also said it will produce SAF at its Grandpuits zero-crude refinery starting in 2024. All the biojet will be supplied to French airports and will be produced from waste and residue sourced from the circular economy.

Grandpuits, near Paris, stopped refining in Q1 2021 and will be converted to a zero-oil platform. La Mede, in the south of France, and Oudalle, near Le Havre, began producing SAF in April 2021. La Mede stopped processing crude oil at the end of 2016 and was converted into a bio plant in 2019.

** Repsol's Cartagena has started construction of its planned second-generation biofuel plant at the nearby to the refinery Escombreras facility, which should result in the production of 250,000 mt/year of biodiesel from waste from mid-2023.

The company will invest Eur200 million in the project that would output biodiesel, biojet, bionaphtha and biopropane, allowing an overall CO2 reduction of 900,000 mt/year. As part of its drive to decarbonize the refinery, Repsol also plans to build a 100 MW hydrogen electrolyzer at Cartagena, with a target date of 2025.

** PKN Orlen said its subsidiary Orlen Poludnie has signed an agreement to build a "complex of units for production of II generation bioethanol" at its biofuels refinery in Jedlicze, southern Poland. The B2G complex will include a main unit for bioethanol production and will have the capacity to produce 25,000 mt/year of bioethanol from biomass. In the next stage, a biogas plant will be built. The biomass will be mainly cereals straw sourced from Polish farmers. The bioethanol complex will also include a biomass-fired combined heat and power plant, which will generate heat for bioethanol production. The Jedlicze refinery is a small former petroleum refinery, which together with the Trzebinia refinery, was incorporated into Orlen Poludnie, the company's biofuels subsidiary.

** Poland's PKN Orlen is constructing a hydrogen plant at its Poludnie biorefinery in Trzebinia. Annual production will be 16 million cu m, and three-quarters of that will be used to produce glycol. The remainder will be used to produce 45 kg/h of fuel-grade hydrogen for use in transport.

** Italy's Eni is considering converting its Livorno refinery into a biorefinery that will produce hydrogenated biofuel, local media reports said. Livorno can also produce biojet as well as lubricants. The company, however, has asked for the sector to be supported by the government and a further discussion will follow.

The company had unveiled plans to stop refining crude and suspend all related activities at the Livorno refinery by end 2022, according to information provided by labor unions, S&P Global reported previously.

** Orsted and BP are to jointly develop a 50 MW renewable hydrogen project at BP's Lingen refinery in Germany. The project, expected to be operational in 2024, would comprise a 50 MW electrolyzer capable of generating 9,000 mt/year of hydrogen, 20% of the refinery's current fossil-based hydrogen consumption. The electrolyzer is expected to be powered by an Orsted North Sea offshore wind farm. The partners have a longer-term ambition to build more than 500 MW of renewable hydrogen capacity at Lingen, providing renewable hydrogen to meet all the refinery's hydrogen demand and provide feedstock for future synthetic fuel production.

** Portugal's Galp is targeting a final investment decision on its planned 100 MW Sines hydrogen production plant in Q1 2023, CEO Andy Brown said. Brown said Galp was also "just about" to take FID on a first stage 2-MW electrolyzer pilot project at Sines. Galp's own 100 MW Sines electrolyzer project will focus on its refinery there, with a target to replace existing conventional hydrogen production. "We can go to 600 MW to actually replace all our grey [hydrogen] with green," and with the possibility of converting the renewable hydrogen to ammonia, "it becomes a complete system," Brown said. Previously, Galp said that the Sines industrial site around the refinery will undergo a gradual transformation into a green energy hub which Galp expects to be leveraged on the access to green hydrogen. This will allow further industrial applications, such as synthetic fuel, and support a significant emissions reduction by 2030. The upgrade could entail a 270,000 mt/year HVO production site, on which Galp has to take a final investment decision.

** Italian energy company Eni and SEA, the operator of Milan's Malpensa and Linate airports, have signed an agreement to supply SAF for commercial flights, as a step towards accelerating the "ecological transition" of the two airports. The agreement follows a decision by the two companies in December 2021 to supply SAF to private flights. "Eni started producing SAFs a few months ago with a mix containing 0.5% of used cooking oil, but there are also plans to develop Eni Biojet soon" which will be made "exclusively" from used cooking oil or animal fats and can be "used in a blend with conventional jet fuel of up to 50%," Umberto Carrara, Director of Green/Traditional Refining and Market at Eni said in the statement. The company plans to produce around 200,000 mt/year by 2024 and double the production by 2030.

** BP has partnered with Dutch green hydrogen company HyCC to develop its 250-MW H2-Fifty electrolyzer project in Rotterdam. The companies will next select a technology partner for the previously announced renewable hydrogen project and begin environmental studies, with a final investment decision expected in 2023. The project is expected to come online in 2025. The renewable hydrogen produced at the facility will replace fossil-based feedstock at BP's Rotterdam refinery and other industries in the area. The plant will be situated in the Maasvlakte area of Rotterdam.

** Ineos is seeking design tenders for its proposed 190,000 mt/year low-carbon hydrogen project at the Grangemouth refinery and petrochemical plant in Scotland. The plant will be operational by 2030. The project will construct a "world-scale" hydrogen plant with carbon capture and storage facility, producing 130,000-150,000 mt/year from natural gas, and will also capture CO2 from existing hydrogen production of 30,000-40,000 mt/year.

** Russia's Lukoil said in December 2021 that it has signed memorandum of intent with Rusatom Overseas, part of the Rosatom Group, to cooperate in the production and supply of green hydrogen for the company's Petrotel refinery in Ploesti, Romania.

** Varo Energy's Cressier refinery in Switzerland will use solar panel generated electricity by 19,000 photovoltaic panels for a "significant portion" of the electricity it consumes. Varo Energy Group and Groupe E will build the "most powerful ground-mounted solar facility in Switzerland" with an installed capacity of 7.7 MW. It will be built in the industrial zone east of the refinery. The energy produced from November 2022 onwards will be primarily consumed on site by the refinery. At full power the park will be able to supply more than 60% of the refinery's needs.

** ExxonMobil, Macquarie's Green Investment Group, and SGN are studying the potential for a low-carbon hydrogen hub centered around ExxonMobil's Fawley refinery on the UK's south coast. Initial hydrogen production could be around 4.3 TWh/year from 2030. Hydrogen demand in the Southampton industrial cluster around the refinery could reach 37 TWh by 2050. The companies have signed a memorandum of understanding to explore the use of low-carbon hydrogen with carbon capture technology for the Southampton industrial cluster.

** Italy's Saras is working on activating a green hydrogen plant for a total of 20 MW. Saras is building the green hydrogen plant with Italian utility Enel. The hydrogen produced would be used at the Sarroch refinery. It is currently provided by the IGCC complex and two reforming units on the industrial site.

** Italy's Eni has started producing SAF at its Taranto refinery in southern Italy, as part of its commitment to decarbonize all its products and processes by 2050. Eni plans to double its current bio-refining capacity of 1.1 million mt/year within the next four years and increase it to 5 million-6 million mt/year by 2050.

Eni targets its SAF capacity to reach at least 500,000 mt/year by 2030. Eni said its SAF production will continue to grow in early 2022, with the start-up of over 10,000 mt/year of SAF from its Livorno refinery using bio-components produced in Eni's existing Gela and Venice bio-refineries. In 2024, Eni plans to launch SAF production at the Gela bio-refinery, where a project is underway for a further 150,000 mt/year of SAF production from 100% renewable raw materials by 2025.

** The Refhyne II consortium, developing a 100-MW electrolyzer to produce renewable hydrogen for Shell's Rheinland refinery in Germany at its Wesseling site, has received a Eur32.4 million grant from the EU. The project follows on from the 10-MW Refhyne I at the refinery, Europe's largest proton exchange membrane electrolyzer, which started operations in July 2021, producing up to 1,300 mt/year of renewable hydrogen. The five electrolyzer modules, with a total 10 MW of capacity, have been installed at the Wesseling site. The refinery comprises the Wesseling (south) and Godorf (north) sites. Shell plans to end crude processing at the Wesseling site in 2025. A final investment decision on Refhyne II is expected in late 2022, with delivery scheduled for 2024. Separately, Shell is planning to produce sustainable and synthetic aviation fuel using renewable power and biogenic sources.

** Polish refiner PKN Orlen had approved a Zloty 600 million ($150 million) investment to build a HVO unit to produce biofuels at its Plock refinery. The unit will process used rapeseed oil to produce an additive to diesel or aviation fuel. The annual production of the unit will be 300,000 mt of biodiesel or aviation biofuel. The start of production is scheduled for mid-2024, PKN said.

** Honeywell said that a trial to co-process biomass-based pyrolysis oil in the Lysekil FCC has been completed producing partially renewable transportation fuel. The refinery used Honeywell UOP's proprietary bioliquid feed system. Swedish refiner Preem announced carrying out the first tests at Lysekil to produce renewable gasoline from sawdust as it has started to process pyrolysis oil at the FCC. The tests consist of two parts: an initial batch of 300 mt of pyrolysis oil, followed by a longer test operation that will process up to 50,000 mt of pyrolysis oil for two years. Pyrolysis oil produced from sustainable solid biomass materials such as sawdust or agricultural residuals is a low carbon feedstock suitable for refinery upgrading, Honeywell said. Separately, a study by Preem and state-owned utility Vattenfall has shown "very good conditions" for an electrolysis plant at the Lysekil refinery which will produce hydrogen for biofuels. The companies are studying a 50 MW electrolysis plant "with the ambition of taking the next step in the spring of 2022." The timing of the start-up depends among other things on an environmental assessment. Preem aims to ramp up biofuels production to approximately 5 million cu m/year by 2030, which "requires a large-scale supply of hydrogen, where the expansion of one or more electrolyzers can play an important role." In October 2020, Preem had started a conversion of Lysekil that will make it the biggest producer of renewable fuels in Scandinavia. The company had abandoned an upgrade of the conventional oil refinery.

** TotalEnergies has launched a research project with French waste and water utility Veolia to accelerate the development of advanced biofuels made from microalgae fed by CO2, the companies said. Under the agreement, the companies will set up a four-year research and testing project to grow microalgae at TotalEnergies La Mede biorefinery in southern France, with the long-term goal of producing biofuel.

Separately, TotalEnergies will stop using palm oil at La Mede from 2023, according to local media report in the La Provence paper. The biorefinery has already significantly reduced the amount of palm oil it processes from 500,000 mt/year initially to 100,000 mt/year in 2021. Separately, TotalEnergies and utility Engie have signed a cooperation agreement to design, develop, build and operate France's largest renewable hydrogen production site near Total's La Mede biorefinery.

** Eni said it will build new units at its Porto Marghera biorefinery in Venice which will allow it to "eliminate the use of palm oil in its production of biofuels." From 2023, Eni will no longer use palm oil in its production processes.

The refinery has submitted documentation for an environmental impact assessment for the new units which will allow the treatment of crude vegetable oils, used plant-based cooking oils and used animal fats. Eni is planning further upgrade work on its existing Gela biorefinery on the island of Sicily to boost output of SAF as the EU targets the jet fuel alternative to help achieve climate neutrality by 2050.

Eni is now planning to convert part of the Gela plant to produce 150,000 mt/year of SAF before 2024.

** Germany's Heide refinery aims to scale its 30 MW electrolyzer project to 300 MW by end 2025. The 30 MW pilot project is part of the Westkueste 100 consortium with Orsted, while the 300 MW expansion project is part of the HyScale 100 project. A final investment decision of the 30 MW pilot is to be taken with a view to a 2023 start date. Output from the electrolyzers will replace conventional hydrogen generated on-site. Using hydrogen blended with CO2 to make methanol, the Klesch-owned refinery aims to be supplying 5% of the jet fuel used at the nearby Hamburg airport as SAF by 2024.

** Croatia's INA is looking at potentially developing its Sisak plant into a biorefinery. "The biorefinery is one of the sustainable alternatives planned for the Sisak industrial site," INA said in a statement, adding that the plant could produce second-generation biofuels. The company had previously said it was looking at various options for the conversion of Sisak, including a bitumen production site and logistic hub.

** Green hydrogen company Everfuel is planning a 300 MW electrolyzer project adjacent to the Fredericia refinery in Denmark to supply renewable gas to the plant and for local zero-emission transport by 2025. The HySynergy Phase II plant will send 80% of the hydrogen produced to the refinery for use as a feedstock in the refining process. The remaining 20% will go to hydrogen mobility applications. The commissioning of the plant is expected in late 2024. Shell sold the Fredericia refinery to private investment company Postlane Partners in early 2021. Postlane's development plans for the refinery include co-processing renewable feedstocks and will focus on green hydrogen, and the potential for advanced biofuels.

** In Q1 2021, Polish refiner Grupa Lotos launched its Pure H2 project, which includes the construction of a hydrogen purification unit and a system for supplying hydrogen to vehicles that haul compressed hydrogen. The project is scheduled to be completed in Q4 2023. Lotos plans to build a pilot 100 MW electrolysis installation and 20 MW power generation unit by 2025. The first stage of the investment will be a pilot project in 2020-25, including a 100 MW electrolysis installation, a 20 MW power generation unit, hydrogen storage and fuel cells. The company said its location in Gdansk on the Baltic Sea coastline was favorable for cooperation with planned offshore wind farms to produce renewable hydrogen. In the second stage between 2025-30, Lotos would look to expand the capacity of the electrolysis installation to 1 GW, and the associated gas-fired generation unit to 200 MW. Storage capacity would be increased to 2,500 mt of hydrogen. In a third stage to 2040, Lotos aimed to become the regional leader in the production and distribution of green hydrogen with plans to supply the gas to refineries and power generation plants, as well as injecting hydrogen into the gas grid. The electrolysis installation would be expanded to 4 GW with a 1 GW gas-fired generation unit, it said.

** TotalEnergies plans to produce SAF from its "zero-crude" Grandpuits platform from 2024. The plant will focus also on production of bioplastics, plastics recycling and the operation of two photovoltaic solar power plants. Crude oil refining has been discontinued in 2021 and storage of oil products will end in late 2023.

** TotalEnergies' Antwerp refinery is interested in adding co-processing biofuel units to the refinery. The company said it was considering adding units to its existing refinery. There is no timeline for deciding about the project. De Standard newspaper cited Jacques Beuckelaers, CEO of Total Antwerp, as saying the units would have capacity of 150,000 mt/year and would process cooking oil and animal fats.

** Germany's MiRo refinery in Karlsruhe is considering launching production of synthetic fuels, pending approval by the local government. The state of Baden-Wuerttemberg plans a large renewable fuels pilot project at the MiRo refinery.

** TotalEnergies and utility Engie have signed a cooperation agreement to design, develop, build and operate France's largest renewable hydrogen production site near Total's La Mede biorefinery. The Masshylia project at Martigues, west of Marseilles, will be powered by a 100-MW solar farm with a 40-MW electrolyzer set to produce 5 mt/day of green hydrogen to meet the needs of the biofuel production process at Total's nearby biorefinery. Construction will start in 2022 following the completion of the advanced engineering study. Production could start in 2024, subject to financial support and public authorizations.

** Turkey's Ersan Petrol is still hopeful its plans for a 1.4 million mt/year refinery at Kahramanmaras in southeast Turkey will be able to go ahead despite repeated delays and a difficult investment climate. Project coordinator Cenk Pala said Ersan was in talks with prospective partners and sources of finance for the project and hopes to start work on the FEED study this year. The refinery is planned for a 300,000 sq m site in Kahramanmaras which holds a defunct mini refinery that will be dismantled. A pre-feasibility study by Axens has defined the configuration and capacity of the plant which will produce mainly Euro 5 diesel, Euro 5 gasoline, jet and bitumen.

** A new greenfield Porto Romano refinery in Albania will be predominantly oriented to export markets but will also be able to cover Albania's domestic demand, Helmut Mayrhofer, Consultant at Larkalis said. Austria-based consultancy Larkalis is leading an international consortium working on the project which will involve building the refinery in the port town of Durres. The refinery has a two-year construction authorization and could be commissioned by end-2025, depending on international developments.

** Azerbaijani state oil company Socar is considering developing a second refinery in Turkey, in addition to its existing 214,000 b/d Star refinery at Aliaga on Turkey's central Aegean coast.

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