Fortum considering to invest in a pilot biorefinery based on Chempolis technology
Fortum
(Finnish energy company) and Taaleri (financial
group whose parent company is listed on Nasdaq Helsinki’s main market) signed on
20th October an agreement with Chempolis
to invest in this company (read press
release). The deal is part of the ownership and financing restructuring of
Chempolis. Fortum will invest approximately M€ 6.4 and Taaleri approximately M€
4. In this way, Fortum will become the largest owner of Chempolis with neraly
34% of the shares.
And, the main reason for publishing
this post: Fortum also announced its intention of investigating the possibility
to invest in a biorefinery pilot plant based on Chempolis technology. According
to the press release, Heli Antila (Fortum’s CTO) said that “Chempolis is a very
interesting company with promising technology and we want to investigate the
possibilities to invest in a commercial pilot plant utilising their technology
to increase the value of biomass”.
Figure 1. Chemical recovery area in Chempolis
Biorefining Park (extracted from Chemplolis web page, photo taken by Sampo
Anttila)
Fortum is a major user of biomass in the North of
Europe and it is looking for innovative technologies in the biomass field. Chempolis
is a biorefining technology company specialised in providing solutions to
refine biomass into advanced bioproducts and it seems that its formico®
biorefining platform can be a good candidate for Fortum. Matti Sundberg (Chempolis’s
Chairman of the Board) stated that the investment will create strong confidence
in Chempolis in international markets and enables multidimensional growth. In
this regard, it is noted that Chempolis
and Numaligarh Refinery Limited (NRL) formed a joint venture to build a world
class biorefinery in India early this year.
