Elev­ance-Wil­mar-Joint-Ven­ture pro­duces renew­able per­form­ance spe­cialty chemicals

Wil­mar Inter­na­tion­al Lim­ited, Asia’s lead­ing agribusi­ness, and Elev­ance Renew­able Sci­ences, Inc., a high-growth spe­cialty chem­ic­als com­pany, announced on 18^th July that they have begun ship­ping com­mer­cial products, includ­ing nov­el spe­cialty chem­ic­als, to cus­tom­ers from their first world-scale joint ven­ture biore­finery, loc­ated in Gresik, Indone­sia. The biore­finery is the first based on Elevance’s pro­pri­et­ary meta­thes­is tech­no­logy. ​“We are pleased to have suc­cess­fully and safely com­pleted con­struc­tion, com­mis­sion­ing and star­tup, allow­ing us to com­mer­cially sup­ply part­ners with bet­ter-per­form­ing, cost-com­pet­it­ive renew­able altern­at­ives to pet­ro­chem­ic­als across mul­tiple indus­tries,” said Elev­ance CEO K’Lynne John­son. ​“We have now turned our atten­tion from con­struc­tion and star­tup to work­ing with our part­ners, such as Arkema and Stepan Com­pany, to meet product demand and accel­er­ate rap­id deploy­ment and com­mer­cial­iz­a­tion of their high-per­form­ance chem­ic­als in end user applic­a­tions.” ​“The tech­no­logy, now proven on a glob­al scale, is driv­ing pos­it­ive changes in the chem­ic­al industry at large by deliv­er­ing nov­el products that improve per­form­ance and reduce envir­on­ment­al impact com­pared to altern­ates,” said Rahul Kale, Head of Bio­fuels and Oleo­chem­ic­als at Wil­mar Inter­na­tion­al Lim­ited. ​”We are pleased that star­tup is com­plete and ship­ments to cus­tom­ers from our joint ven­ture are now under­way.” The com­mer­cial-scale man­u­fac­tur­ing facil­ity pro­duces nov­el spe­cialty chem­ic­als, includ­ing mul­ti­func­tion­al esters such as 9‑decenoic methyl ester, a unique dis­tri­bu­tion of bio-based alpha and intern­al olefins includ­ing decene and a premi­um mix­ture of oleo­chem­ic­als. It has a capa­city of 180kMT (approx­im­ately 400 mil­lion pounds) with the abil­ity to expand up to 360kMT (approx­im­ately 800 mil­lion pounds) of products. The high-value per­form­ance spe­cialty chem­ic­als, olefins and oleo­chem­ic­als will be used in per­son­al care products, deter­gents and clean­ers, lub­ric­ants and addit­ives, engin­eered poly­mers, and oth­er spe­cialty chem­ic­als mar­kets. These spe­cialty chem­ic­als enable deter­gents to be more con­cen­trated and clean bet­ter in cold water; improved solvency for bet­ter hard sur­face clean­ers; lub­ric­ant base oils with improved sta­bil­ity and fuel eco­nomy; and unique monomers for bio-based poly­mers and engin­eered plastics, includ­ing long chain poly­am­ides, poly­ureth­anes and poly­es­ters. The high-value, di-func­tion­al spe­cialty chem­ic­als pro­duced at the biore­finery have super­i­or func­tion­al attrib­utes, pre­vi­ously unavail­able com­mer­cially. These molecules com­bine the func­tion­al attrib­utes of an olefin, typ­ic­al of pet­ro­chem­ic­als, and a mono­func­tion­al ester or acid, typ­ic­al of bio-based oleo­chem­ic­als, into a single molecule. The new plant is loc­ated with­in Wilmar’s integ­rated man­u­fac­tur­ing com­plex in Gresik, Indone­sia. The biore­finery will ini­tially oper­ate using palm oil, but it is cap­able of run­ning on mul­tiple renew­able oil feed­stocks, includ­ing mus­tard, soy­bean and, when they become com­mer­cially avail­able, jatropha or algal oils.

About Elev­ance Renew­able Sci­ences, Inc.

Headquartered in Woodridge, Ill., Elev­ance Renew­able Sci­ences, Inc. cre­ates nov­el spe­cialty chem­ic­als from nat­ur­al oils. Using a pro­pri­et­ary tech­no­logy called olefin meta­thes­is, the com­pany cre­ates high-per­form­ance products for use in per­son­al care products, deter­gents and clean­ers, lub­ric­ants and addit­ives, engin­eered poly­mers, and oth­er spe­cialty chem­ic­als mar­kets. To learn more, vis­it www​.elev​ance​.com.

About Wil­mar

Wil­mar Inter­na­tion­al Lim­ited, foun­ded in 1991 and headquartered in Singa­pore, is today Asia’s lead­ing agribusi­ness group. Wil­mar is ranked among the largest lis­ted com­pan­ies by mar­ket cap­it­al­iz­a­tion on the Singa­pore Exchange. Wilmar’s busi­ness activ­it­ies include oil palm cul­tiv­a­tion, oil­seeds crush­ing, edible oils refin­ing, sug­ar milling and refin­ing, spe­cialty fats, oleo­chem­ic­als, biod­ies­el and fer­til­izers man­u­fac­tur­ing and grains pro­cessing. For more inform­a­tion, vis­it www​.wil​mar​-inter​na​tion​al​.com. Source: Elev­ance Renew­able Sci­ences, Inc.