With the investment of 111 million euros, Neste will build the capacity to upgrade 150,000 tons of liquefied waste plastic per year. Upgrading is one of the three processing steps turning liquefied waste plastic into high-quality feedstock for new plastics: pretreatment, upgrading and refining. The investment is part of a broader project, which has received an EU Innovation Fund grant of 135 million euros if fully implemented and is targeting a total capacity of 400,000 tons per year.
The project will see Neste building new assets at the Porvoo refinery, but also leveraging existing assets through retrofitting, to scale-up chemical recycling fast and efficiently. The upgraded liquefied waste plastic will then be processed in the conventional refinery, in which it will replace a portion of the fossil resources processed at the Porvoo refinery.
Required preparation works at the Porvoo refinery were successfully completed during the first half of 2023, enabling the construction work to commence without any delay.