Oil and gas giant TotalEnergies has updated the commissioning date for its Grandpuits refinery, which it is converting into a zero-crude platform.
Originally scheduled for 2024, the commissioning is now scheduled for mid 2025.
Located southeast of Paris in Seine-et-Marne, the Grandpuits site operated as an oil refinery until February 2021 and, as part of an over €500 million investment, is being fully repurposed into a zero-crude platform focused on four new industrial activities. These include the production of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), biomethane production, plastics recycling, and the operation of two photovoltaic solar power plants.
TotalEnergies and Plastic Energy are building a chemical recycling plant on the site, based on the pyrolysis technology developed by Plastic Energy. It will have a capacity to handle 15,000 tons of waste per year. The pyrolysis oil will be used as feedstock to produce polymers with identical properties to virgin polymers, according to TotalEnergies.
The pyrolysis plant is now also expected to become operational in mid 2025.
TotalEnergies is also building a mechanical recycling unit at Grandpuits, targeting the high-performance packaging market, in particular for pharmaceuticals and cosmetics. It will have a capacity of 30,000 tons a year and is expected to become operational in 2026.
The transformation at Grandpuits is mainly aimed at the aviation sector. The converted biorefinery is expected to have a processing capacity of 400,000 metric tons/year, producing 210,000 metric tons/year of SAF, which will be extended to 285,000 metric tons/year from 2027. It is also expected to produce 50,000 metric tons/year of renewable diesel and 70,000 metric tons/year of renewable naphtha.
Find TotalEnergies and Plastic Energy at PRSE: stands AA8 and K91, respectively.