ORLEN Południe, a part of the ORLEN Group, has signed a contract for the construction of a new oilseed processing plant located at Kętrzyn in the Polish Province of Olsztyn.
In a statement issued yesterday (21 September), ORLEN said that the plant will process 500,000 tonnes of rapeseed annually, yielding a production output of 200,000 tonnes of oil for the purpose of manufacturing ‘low-carbon biofuels’.
Daniel Obajtek, ORLEN’s CEO and President of the Management Board, commented: ‘We have an ambitious strategy to advance our biofuel production capabilities, a commitment that underscores the ORLEN Group’s aspiration to emerge as a dominant force in the regional biofuel sector. To further this vision, we are actively investing in our refineries in Trzebinia, Jedlicze, Płock and Gdańsk. The most recent project will involve the establishment of our own rapeseed oil pressing plant in Kętrzyn. With an annual processing capacity of 500,000 tonnes of rapeseed, this facility is expected to utilise a substantial portion, approximately one-seventh, of the total domestic output of the crop.’
The construction of the new facility is set to start in the first half of 2024, with completion expected by mid-2026. In addition to the pressing plant itself, the complex will encompass various processing nodes, including facilities for raw material reception and product dispatch, raw material and product storage, pressing and extraction, process steam production, and wastewater treatment. The contractor responsible for the project will be a consortium of Polimex Mostostal S.A. and AB Industry S.A.
Most of the output from the new Kętrzyn facility will be destined for ORLEN Południe’s biodiesel plant in Trzebinia.
The ORLEN2030 strategy envisages that by the end of the decade the use of bio-additives in the ORLEN Group will reach about 3 million tonnes per year. ORLEN said that this expansion in biofuel production will be complemented by the production of biogas and biogas-derivative biomethane, which can serve as vital feedstock for biofuel manufacturing but also present themselves as standalone fuels capable of substituting natural gas. By 2030, the ORLEN Group aims to possess the capacity to produce 1 bcm of biogas annually, with total investments in excess of PLN 10 billion.
