Poland’s Orlen new oil pressing plant to boost crop-based biofuel production

Polish biofuel producer Orlen Południe, a part of the Orlen Group, said it will construct an oilseed pressing plant in Ketrzyn in Poland, to process 500,000 tonnes/year of rapeseed.

PHOTO: Moving train with tankers of biofuel. Getty Images

The pressing plant will produce 200,000 tonnes of oil from processed rapeseed sourced primarily from Polish farmers, the company said. It will be then used as a feedstock to increase production of crop-based biofuels.

Orlen has invested approximately PLN 850 million ($19.71 million) to build this plant. The construction of the plant is expected to begin in the first half of 2024, and aim to complete it by mid-2026, it added.

The plant “will encompass various processing nodes, including facilities for raw material reception and dispatch, product storage, pressing and extraction, process steam production, and wastewater treatment,” Orlen said.

“With an annual processing capacity of 500 thousand tonnes of rapeseed, this facility is expected to utilise a substantial portion, approximately one-seventh, of the total domestic output of the crop,” said Orlen’s chief executive officer Daniel Obajtek.

The biofuel producer is also building a second-generation bioethanol plant at the Jedlicze refinery, to produce 25,000 tonnes of bioethanol annually, “utilising non-food raw materials, primarily straw, sourced from Polish farmers in the quantity of 150,000 tonnes per year.”

By Aparupa Mazumder 

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