BELT and Neste to study the feasibility of producing renewable diesel from forest residues in La Tuque

The biorefining sector in Canada is gaining momentum. In the last post, we learnt about Nova Scotia’s value proposition to those interested in constructing a biorefinery in the area (see post). In this new post, we will move to La Tuque, a city of the Province of Quebec, in order to know its biorefinery project as well as its last advancements.

La Tuque biorefinery project

La Tuque is making great efforts to develop projects related to the use of forest biomass that is available in large quantities on its territory. The municipality works on bioenergy projects, institutional boiler plants, pellet manufacturing… The largest project currently under development is a biorefinery fed by forest residues. It is entitled "Vision La Tuque 2023" and is carried by a non-profit organization called “Bioenergie La Tuque” (BELT). Its mission is to put in place all the conditions conducive to the development of the bioenergy industry in La Tuque. The organization is led by a four-person board of directors, three forest engineers and a university research professor.

Figure 1. Bioenergie La Tuque (BELT) logo

The project, which has the technical support of FPInnovations, will serve as a reference for new initiatives. The knowledge, technologies and competencies developed in the course of the studies co-financed by the provincial and federal governments and industry partners could be replicated in other forest-sector dependent regions of Canada. In the table below, some preliminary data about the project are summarized (extracted from the following presentation: “Le projet de bioraffinerie forestière de La Tuque: une première canadienne”, P.J. Mangin and P. Bergeron, 14/09/2016).

Feedstock and processing capacity	Forestry residues from the Region of Mauricie (Quebec, Canada). 1,200,000 green metric tons per year.
Products and production capacity	Renewable diesel, preferably drop-in type. 207 Ml per year (approximately 4.3% of diesel consumption in transportation of Quebec).
Investment	In the order of one billion Canadian dollars.
Employment	490 jobs (295 direct jobs not included in the construction period).

The announcement of BELT and Neste

Through a press release issued last month (17/01/2017), BELT and Neste announced a R&D partnership agreement with the objective of studying the feasibility of producing renewable diesel from forest harvest residues in La Tuque. The agreement focuses on the project’s techno-economic feasibility and will assess the biomass availability at a competitive cost, identify technology bottlenecks in process lines and validate the acceptable level of risk.

With the public announcement of the partnership, the La Tuque project has taken an important step forward as far as credibility and execution are concerned. Neste is recognized as the world’s largest producer of renewable diesel (see post about HVO biorefineries) and a pioneer in the advanced biofuels field. In fact, it was selected as the leading biofuel operator at the 2016 Global Energy Awards. Lars Peter Lindfors (SVP Technologies at Neste) said: “We believe that forest harvest residues can play a significant role in the future in producing renewable products, and therefore, we are very excited about this cooperation. We expect to see the Canadian and Quebec legislations on advanced renewable fuels developing further in the next two years, as we see it as a prerequisite for any future investments”.