Neste continues to expand its chemical recycling logistics infrastructure as it builds a liquefied waste plastic upgrading unit at its Porvoo refinery in Finland.
The Finish company is collaborating with Tepsa Netherlands, a specialist on the storage and transport of petrochemicals, for storage and handling of liquefied waste plastic in the port of Rotterdam.
Neste is getting ready to process 150,000 tonnes of liquefied waste plastic per year, which will require it to secure feedstock from various suppliers across Europe. The port of Rotterdam is a major logistics hub offers seamless connectivity to the continent's expansive infrastructure.
Tepsa Netherlands will provide aggregation tanks at the port of Rotterdam for Neste to store the feedstock it secures. The tanks are expected to be operational in the second half of 2025, matching the schedule for the ongoing construction of the upgrading unit at Porvoo.
“The new aggregation tanks in Rotterdam enabling efficient logistics are crucial in optimizing our supply chain and in reaching our ambitious goals of processing liquefied waste plastic,” said Andreas Teir, head of chemical recycling at Neste. “We are continuously expanding our network of suppliers for liquefied waste plastic and the new storage significantly enhances our offtake flexibility. This paves the way for a more sustainable and circular plastics economy and we are excited about the opportunities this collaboration brings.”
At Porvoo, Neste is also building an unloading arm with a heating system at the refinery’s harbour, as well as highly corrosion-resistant pipelines to connect the harbour with dedicated storage tanks. This infrastructure will heat Neste’s feedstock, which is required for it to stay in liquid form, unlike with regular crude oil.
These infrastructure investments are part of a broader project called Pulse (Pretreatment and Upgrading of Liquefied waste plastic to Scale up circular Economy), which has received an EU Innovation Fund grant of €135 million if fully implemented and is targeting a total capacity of 400,000 tons per year. The activities are projected to allow Neste to phase out the use of virgin fossil feedstocks by the mid 2030s.
The Porvoo upgrading unit will liquefy mixed plastic waste in a thermochemical liquefaction process, which turns it into pyrolysis oil that is used in Neste’s traditional oil refineries. In a steam cracker, Neste’s feedstock can be used on its own or in a blend and is reportedly a drop-in solution suitable for existing production infrastructure.