MOSCOW (MRC) -- ExxonMobil is expanding its interests in biofuels that can help reduce GHG emissions in the transportation sector, acquiring a 49.9% stake in Biojet AS, a Norwegian biofuels company that plans to convert forestry and wood-based construction waste into lower-emissions biofuels and biofuel components, according to Hydrocarbonprocessing.
Biojet AS plans to develop up to five facilities to produce the biofuels and biofuel components. The company anticipates commercial production to begin in 2025 at a manufacturing plant to be built in Follum, Norway. The agreement enables ExxonMobil to purchase as much as 3 MM bbl of the products per year, based on the potential capacity of five facilities.
“The agreement with Biojet AS advances ExxonMobil’s efforts to provide lower-emissions products for the transportation sector,” said Ian Carr, president of ExxonMobil Fuels and Lubricants Company. “Using our access at the Slagen terminal, we can efficiently distribute biofuels in Norway and to countries throughout northwest Europe.”
The investment in Biojet AS builds on ExxonMobil’s continuing efforts to develop and deploy lower-emission energy solutions. ExxonMobil established a Low Carbon Solutions business in 2021 and is currently evaluating biofuels, CCS, and hydrogen projects around the world.
ExxonMobil’s majority-owned affiliate, Imperial Oil Ltd., is moving forward with plans to produce renewable diesel at a new complex at its Strathcona refinery, and ExxonMobil expanded its agreement to annually purchase up to 5 MM bbl of renewable diesel from Global Clean Energy’s biorefinery in California. Chemically similar to petroleum-based diesel, renewable diesel and other biofuels can be readily blended for use in engines on the market today.
Since 2000, ExxonMobil has invested more than USD10 B to research, develop and deploy lower-emission energy solutions.
As MRC informed before, ExxonMobil said on Dec. 27, its Baytown, Texas, refinery continued to operate at reduced rates following a fire on Dec. 23, and that the unit involved remained shut down. The company has not yet determined the cause of the fire, but said it was continuing to empty the unit so it could safely enter the facility and assess what impact it would have on production. A filing with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality said the fire occurred at the facility's hydro desulfurization unit 1.
Exxon's Baytown facility is home to a chemical plant, an olefins plant and the country's fourth-biggest oil refinery, with capacity to process 560,500 bpd of crude.
Ethylene and propylene are the main feedstocks for the production of polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP), respectively.
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 2,265,290 tonnes in the first eleven months of 2021, up by 14% year on year. Shipments of all grades of ethylene polymers increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 1,363,850 tonnes in January-November, 2021, up by 25% year on year. Supply of homopolymer PP and block-copolymers of propylene (PP block copolymers) increased, whereas supply of injection moulding PP random copolymers decreased significantly.
ExxonMobil is the largest non-government owned company in the energy industry and produces about 3% of the world's oil and about 2% of the world's energy.
MRC