Fintoil chooses Adven as its energy partner

The biorefinery will be completed in the summer of 2022. It will refine crude tall oil (CTO) into fractions to be used for the production of renewable diesel, and for the needs of the chemical, food and pharmaceutical industries. About 50 per cent of the biorefinery’s output will be used for the production of renewable fuels, while the rest will be used for other sustainable products.

“Lately, we have seen a trend of outsourcing energy plants, which made us consider this option, too. We chose Adven as our partner because the company is a well-known operator with good references both from public sources and from customers. Adven’s knowledgeable and helpful people have convinced us that they know both technology and the business,” says the CEO of Fintoil, Jukka Ravaska.

The production process of the refinery is based on fractional distillation in which heat energy and negative pressure are used to distil the raw material to its constituents, separating the wanted fractions. This is where Adven enters the process and provides the necessary heat energy for the process.

“We already have existing customers in the Port of Hamina, such as BASF, Neste and Prefere Resins. This new agreement will further strengthen our operations in the area. For Fintoil’s refining processes, we will supply energy with a 10 MW boiler both reliably and with high availability,” says Adven’s Sales Project Development Director Juha Elo.

Fintoil aims to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by producing renewable end products that will contribute to reducing emissions and, in turn, to Finland’s efforts towards carbon neutrality.

The company refines crude tall oil, which is obtained as a by-product of manufacturing tall and pine pulp, into fractions that are used as raw materials for various products. Tall oil distillation has a minimal carbon footprint, much like the products obtained through it used by the fuel, glue, adhesive, health and welfare industries.

“You can produce 100 million litres of biodiesel annually from fatty acid, which equals the annual fuel consumption of ca. 110,000 cars. On the other hand, the European Union’s Renewable Energy Directive also lists crude tall oil as one of the sustainable raw materials suitable for the production of advanced biofuels,” Ravaska says.