Fortum considering to invest in a pilot biorefinery based on Chempolis technology

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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.

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