Neste Rotterdam, Netherlands

Neste Rotterdam Refinery

Project: Neste Rotterdam, Netherlands 
Feedstock: HEFA – used cooking oils and animal fats
Process: Neste NEXBTL
Location: Maasvlakte, Port of Rotterdam

SAF Production start: 2023
2023 SAF production: 500,000 tons
2026 SAF production: 1.2m tons

The team at Neste Rotterdam are very proud that Rotterdam has never refined even a drop of any fossil fuel. It started making renewable diesel and chemical products in 2011 and is Europe’s largest renewable refinery.

In the last 10 years it has used 10 different raw feedstocks and a lot of its expertise is in pre-treating where it removes impurities which reduce the efficiency of catalysts.

It is set to start producing Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) for the first time in 2023 – the storage tanks and distilling tower were being built when SAF Investor visited in late 2022. It is also building a Green Hydrogen pilot plant which will have the world’s largest hight temperature electrolyser.

Neste then plans another round of investment to add more SAF and renewable diesel capacity by 2026.

June 2022 – comments

“The investment in the expansion of our Rotterdam refinery strengthens our global leading position in renewable products. It also marks an important step in ensuring our future competitiveness and our renewables’ growth strategy execution as it will bring a substantial amount of renewable diesel, SAF and renewable feedstock for polymers and chemicals to our sustainability-focused customers,” says Matti Lehmus, President and CEO of Neste.

“This investment will further strengthen our competitive advantages which are based on the global optimization of our production and waste and residue raw material usage. With our proprietary NEXBTL™ technology, high quality renewable products can be refined flexibly from a wide variety of lower quality waste and residues. The new production line – together with our Singapore expansion – will be best in class in terms of energy efficiency and raw material flexibility.”