14 Dec. 2023: SCA announced that the Gothenburg biorefinery, which SCA jointly owns with St1, has recently reached a key milestone as the project management team handed over the facility to an operating organization to begin start-up.

Four years ago, SCA entered into a partnership with St1 to manufacture biofuel. Some 2.5 million working hours later, the plant is now ready for start-up. In recent months, the various parts of the process have been tested individually, and now the meticulous work of connecting the entire production chain begins. The aim is to produce 180,000 tonnes of renewable aviation fuel and renewable diesel a year.

Initially, used cooking oil will be used as an input. Once the process has stabilized, tall oil will also be used as an input. The tall oil is a by-product from SCA's paper and pulp mills in Östrand in Timrå, Obbola in Umeå, and Munksund in Piteå.

"Our operations in Norrbotten, Västerbotten and Västernorrland are now even more important cogs in SCA's value chain," said Ulf Larsson, CEO of SCA. "This is an excellent example of how our mills can also provide raw materials for fossil-free fuels, in this case to create larger volumes of fossil-free aviation fuel from sustainably managed Swedish forests."

Roger Östlin, SCA Director of Renewable Fuels, is pleased about this major breakthrough and the increased climate benefit from SCA's forests that this provides.

"By further refining tall oil into renewable jet fuel for aviation, we're further developing our value chain and thereby increasing the climate benefit that the forest contributes. Biofuels replace fossil alternatives, which promotes sustainable development and the climate," Östlin said.
Project Background

SCA and St1 previously entered into a partnership with the aim of investing in large-scale production of biofuels at a new facility in conjunction with St1's existing operations in Gothenburg, Sweden. Under the auspices of this project, around SEK 2.5 billion has been invested in a new biorefinery with the capacity to produce 200,000 tonnes of liquid biofuel.