Neste Oil building $1B biodiesel plant

Espoo, Finland-based Neste Oil announced today that it plans to build a $1 billion large-scale biodiesel plant in the Netherlands.

This is the fourth biodiesel project from state-controlled Neste, with this latest facility to go up in Rotterdam.

The company said the plant would have an annual capacity of 800,000 tonnes. Neste said construction would start immediately and that the site is due to be complete in 2011.

"Rotterdam is Europe's largest center of petroleum products and chemicals production, and offers a wide range of dedicated services, as well as port facilities — all of which makes Rotterdam an ideal location for a NExBTL plant," said Risto Rinne, president and CEO of Neste.

NExBTL is Neste's renewable diesel, which it said can use a wide range of raw materials.

The company's first NExBTL facility was commissioned in Finland at Neste's Porvoo refinery last summer. Neste currently uses a mix of palm oil, rapeseed oil, and animal fat to produce renewable diesel at the Porvoo plant.

A second facility is due to come on stream in Porvoo in 2009. Neste said they both have a capacity of 170,000 tonnes per year.

And in November 2007, the company announced a decision to go ahead with its first 800,000 tonne per year plant in Singapore (see Finland's Neste Oil heads for the top in biodiesel).

The Singapore facility, which was valued at $810 million at the time, is due to be complete by the end of 2010.

Neste has said it's aiming to become the world's leading producer of biodiesel and plans to invest several billion euros in biodiesel over the next 10 years.

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