Finnish company St1 inaugurates a waste-based ethanol plant in Gothenburg

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The Finnish energy company St1 Biofuels Oy inaugurated on 5 June a waste-based ethanol plant with its Etanolix® concept. The plant delivered to North European Bio Tech Oy (NEB) recycles biowaste and process residue from local bakeries and bread from shops that is past its sell-by date into ethanol for transport fuel. The ethanol plant is fully integrated into the functions and logistics of St1 oil refinery in Gothenburg and has an annual production capacity of 5 million litres of advanced bioethanol. This production will be leased to North European Oil Trade Oy (NEOT). NEOT is the sister company of NEB and it is the most significant independent fuel supply company in the Baltic Sea region.

Figure 1. Ethanolix waste-based ethanol plant in Gothenburg (extracted from www.St1.eu)

The Gothenburg project was selected for inclusion in the Life+ programme of the European Commission, which provides funding for projects on energy, climate, environmental and waste management,... This project is the first in which an ethanol production plant is being built and integrated at an existing oil refinery to produce waste- and residue-based ethanol on a sustainable basis.

This is not the only new from St1 in the last weeks. Recently, Novozymes announced a deal to supply enzyme technology to a new biorefinery that will be built by St1 in Kajaani (Finland). The facility will be co-located at a sawmill site and will be the first one in the world to use sawdust from softwood as feedstock to produce cellulosic ethanol at commercial scale. The plant will be constructed and operated using the pre-treatment and the process technologies called Cellunolix®. With an annual capacity of 10 million liters, the biorefinery represents an expected investment of around €40 million. Construction is scheduled to begin in the second half of 2015, with production expected to start in 2016. 

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