Stora Enso, Neste Oil to End Biodiesel Project, Continue Cooperation
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Finland-based Stora Enso and Neste Oil will not go forward with plans to build a biodiesel plant. The two companies had applied for grant support under the EU's NER 300 program, but the joint project was not among those recently approved for funding.
"We have calculated the cost of the project very carefully and realistically. It would have represented a very significant investment and we concluded that we would not have gone ahead in any case, even if we had won public funding," according to Neste Oil President and CEO Matti Lievonen and Stora Enso CEO Jouko Karvinen.
The trials carried out by Neste Oil and Stora Enso at a pilot plant in Varkaus, Finland, between 2009 and 2011 on the entire chain needed for the planned plant—from wood biomass to biowax suitable for use as a raw material for producing renewable diesel—proved very successful, the two companies reported.
"Technically speaking, our work was a great success and we are very satisfied with what we achieved. Cooperation between the two companies has also been very smooth and will continue in the future in the area of other bio-based products," Lievonen and Karvinen noted.
Stora Enso has an annual production capacity of 4.9 million metric tons of chemical pulp, 11.8 million metric tons of paper and board, 1.3 billion sq. meters of corrugated packaging, and 6.0 million cubic meters of sawn wood products, including 3.1 million cubic meters of value-added products. The company had sales in 2011 of some EUR 11.0 billion, and it employs about 30,000 people worldwide.
Neste Oil is a refining and marketing company, with a production focus on premium-quality, lower-emission traffic fuels. The company produces a range of major petroleum products and is a global producer of renewable diesel. It had net sales of EUR 15.4 billion in 2011 and employs around 5,000 people.
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