Neste has taken a final investment decision to add capacity for renewable products at its plant in Singapore. The Finnish group said the go-ahead is based on growing global demand for low-carbon solutions in transport and cities, aviation, polymers and chemicals.

It will invest around €1.4 billion to extend output by up to 1.3 million t/y, taking total global production close to 4.5 million t/y. The company anticipates the additional line will start up during the first half of 2022 and has awarded a contract to TechnipFMC for engineering, procurement support and construction management services.

The project will give Neste more options to choose between different product mixes, as well as adding logistics capabilities and enhanced raw material pre-treatment that will allow the use of increasingly low-quality waste and residue raw materials also for the existing refinery.

“The investment will strengthen our competitive advantages which are based on the global optimization of our production and waste and residue raw material usage, said Peter Vanacker, Neste’s president and CEO. “With our proprietary NEXBTL technology, renewable products can be refined flexibly from a wide variety of lower quality waste and residues while the end-products retain their high quality.”

Neste’s current global capacity for renewable products is 2.8 million t/y, with more than 1 million t/y produced both in Singapore and in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, with the rest in Porvoo, Finland. Before the new Singapore line starts up, Neste said it will continue debottlenecking capacity to bring production up to 3 million t/y by 2020.