INA submits a request of strategic investment status for the Sisak biorefinery project

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Type of post: NEWS.

INA has submitted a request to the Ministry of Economy of Croatia for the Sisak biorefinery project to be awarded strategic investment status.
Press release: “INA prijavila projekt Biorafinerije za status strateškog investicijskog projekta za Republiku Hrvatsku”, 23/6/2020.
Related posts:
- “DSEC signs basic engineering contract for the 2G ethanol biorefinery project of INA in Croatia”, 17/1/2020.
-  “INA chooses Futurol technology licensed by Axens for its 2G ethanol project in Croatia”, 12/3/2020.

Figure 1. Biomass availability and supply for the biorefinery project of INA in Sisak (extracted from “Concept of Converting Oil Refinery to Biorefinery”, IEA Bioenergy Task 43 Workshop, University J.J. Strossmayer, Osijek, March 27th, 2018)

The total investment is worth 250 M€ and part of that figure is expected to be covered from the EU innovations funds. INA confirmed that despite the challenging business climate, it is continuing strategic projects and the transformation of the Sisak refinery complex. One of the activities in Sisak would be to develop a biorefinery to produce 2G bioethanol along with green energy. The company underscored that support from the EU and the Croatian government is a key precondition to finally realise this significant project for Croatia and INA which entirely fits into Europe’s Green Deal energy strategy.

At the end of last year, INA signed an agreement with the Belgian De Smet Engineers & Contractors to design the integration of the biorefining unit in the existing refinery structure. And, in February, it selected Futurol technology for the 2G ethanol production process.

Regarding the establishing a feedstock supply chain, two harvests of the energy crop miscanthus were conducted on the demonstration field in Rugvica near Zagreb, in cooperation with the Bc Institute. The collected biomass of the first harvest was sent for testing within the BBI GRACE project (GRowing Advanced Industrial Crops on marginal lands for biorEfineries) and the results confirmed miscanthus as a good raw material for the production of 2G bioethanol. The second harvest of miscanthus was carried out in March this year, during which INA tested agricultural machinery of renowned EU manufacturers.

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