The construction of the Kajaani Cellunolix® biorefinery of St1 is on track
St1 Biofuels, subsidiary of the Nordic
energy company St1 Nordic Oy and pioneer in waste-based bioethanol production,
is building a cellulosic
ethanol plant in Kajaani (Finland). The blog reported in June that Novozymes had announced a deal to supply
enzyme technology to this new biorefinery that will have an annual capacity of
10 million liters and represent an investment of around €40 million.
The construction of the facility,
which began in the second half of 2015, is proceeding on schedule (press
release). Several large tanks have already been constructed and the
installation of the equipment is being carried out during the winter. First tests will commence during
the coming summer and the raw material supply and commissioning will start in
late 2016. Engineering and construction phases are generating over 200 jobs and
the operation of the plant will require between 10 and 15 permanent new jobs
with the personnel selection starting in May.
The plant will be constructed and operated using
the pretreatment and the process technologies called Cellunolix® which utilizes
saw dust from soft wood (for instance, pine and spurge) as feedstock. 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. St1 Biofuels stated that has developed a technology that cuts
the production costs and enables cost efficient logistics and limited capital
risk exposure.
