Petronas and Partners Break Ground on Malaysia’s First Large-Scale Biorefinery

PETRONAS, Enilive, and Euglena person begun operation of a 650,000-tonne-per-year biorefinery successful Pengerang, Malaysia, marking a large measurement toward scaling up sustainable substance accumulation successful Asia by 2028.

Pengerang Biorefinery Sdn. Bhd., a associated task betwixt Malaysia’s PETRONAS, Italy’s Enilive S.p.A., and Japan’s Euglena Co., Ltd, has officially breached crushed connected a caller biorefinery analyzable wrong the Pengerang Integrated Complex (PIC) successful Johor. Once operational successful the 2nd fractional of 2028, the installation volition process up to 650,000 tonnes of renewable feedstocks annually to nutrient Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF), Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil (HVO), and bio-naphtha. Feedstocks volition see discarded oils, carnal fats, and residues from rootlike lipid processing.

The task positions Malaysia arsenic a cardinal determination hub for precocious biofuel accumulation astatine a clip erstwhile Southeast Asia’s aviation and transport sectors are nether increasing unit to decarbonize. The refinery volition leverage PIC’s strategical determination adjacent large planetary shipping routes to administer biofuels efficiently crossed Asia.

PETRONAS Executive Vice President and Downstream CEO Datuk Sazali Hamzah described the task arsenic cardinal to the company’s strategy of processing a “holistic bio-based worth chain,” reinforcing PETRONAS’ ambition to go an integrated vigor person by the adjacent decade.

For Enilive, the installation extends its planetary biofuel footprint, which already includes biorefineries successful Italy and the U.S., and projects nether improvement successful Italy and South Korea. CEO Stefano Ballista said the caller tract would lend toward Enilive’s people of implicit 5 cardinal tonnes of bioproducts and 2 cardinal tonnes of SAF annually by 2030.

Euglena’s President Mitsuru Izumo highlighted the task arsenic a milestone successful the company’s broader efforts to commercialize algal biofuels and grow decarbonization solutions successful the ASEAN region. He noted that the project’s improvement reflects the “rapidly changing vigor landscape” and the shared extremity of advancing a sustainable vigor proviso chain.

Located wrong the Pengerang Integrated Complex—Malaysia’s largest downstream lipid and state facility—the caller biorefinery volition payment from established infrastructure, logistics, and feedstock proviso networks. The concern underscores Malaysia’s broader propulsion to pull greenish manufacture improvement portion positioning Johor arsenic a determination person successful cleanable fuels manufacturing.

By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com