Neste Oil has begun building a €670m (£582m) renewable diesel plant in the Port of Rotterdam, which, once completed, will be the largest facility of its kind in Europe.
It will have an annual production capacity of 800,000 metric tonnes of diesel.
The plant will make use of the company's proprietary process that converts vegetable oils and animal fats into its so-called NExBTL renewable diesel.
The properties of the NExBTL diesel are similar to the best existing diesels, such as GTL or Swedish Environmental Class 1 fuels; NExBTL is sulphur-, oxygen-, nitrogen- and aromatic-free and has a very high cetane number.
The company's first NExBTL diesel plant was completed in Porvoo in summer 2007 and the second one will be completed this year. Both have a capacity of 170,000 t/a of NExBTL renewable diesel and require some 200,000 tons of raw material each, including 20,000 tons of local animal fat.
In addition, Neste Oil is building a 800,000 t/a plant in Singapore, which is due to be completed by the end of 2010.
The Rotterdam facility will be completed in 2011.
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