St1 announces biofuel projects in Sweden, Columbia

On May 25, Nordic energy group St1 announced plans for two separate biofuels projects. One aims to produce biofuels from tall oil in Sweden while the other will explore a combined carbon farming and sustainable biofuels concept in Columbia.

With regard to the project in Sweden, St1 and forest products company SCA have formed a partnership to develop large-scale production of renewable fuels using tall oil feedstock. The planned production site is at St1’s existing refinery in Gothenburg, Sweden.

According to St1, the facility is currently expected to be operational in 2021. Once complete, the plant will have the capacity to produce 100,000 tons of biofuel per year from tall oil, which is a residual product from the production of kraft pulp.

For the Columbia project, St1 announced its Norwegian subsidiary, St1 Norge AS, has signed a letter of intent with C2Biotrade to explore the afforestation of land in Columbia with the aim of biologically capturing and storing atmospheric carbon while producing biofuel feedstock for the production of biofuels.

According to St1, C2Biotrade aims to establish plant 60,000 hectares (148,263.23 acres) of African palm, which can yield up to 250,000 metric tons per year of palm oil while capturing more atmospheric carbon dioxide than current grass. The palm oil feedstock would then be used to produce renewable diesel.