UPM Lap­peen­ranta Biore­finery is in com­mer­cial production

“Lap­peen­ranta Biore­finery is the first sig­ni­fic­ant invest­ment in a new and innov­at­ive pro­duc­tion facil­ity in Fin­land dur­ing the ongo­ing trans­form­a­tion of the forest industry. It is also a focal part in the imple­ment­a­tion of our company’s Biofore trans­form­a­tion strategy,” says Heikki Vap­pula, Exec­ut­ive Vice Pres­id­ent, UPM Biore­fin­ing.

​“The pro­duc­tion pro­cess works as planned and the high qual­ity end product, UPM BioVerno dies­el, ful­fils cus­tom­er spe­cific­a­tions. The start-up phase of the biore­finery began in early autumn, and it has included cus­tom­ary new pro­cess and pro­duc­tion related chal­lenges. The biore­finery is first of its kind in the world. We are now happy to move for­ward from start-up phase and be able to con­cen­trate on reg­u­lar pro­duc­tion pro­cess”, says Petri Kukkon­en, Head of UPM Bio­fuels busi­ness.

Innov­at­ive bio­fuel
The UPM BioVerno dies­el is pro­duced out of crude tall oil, a residue of pulp pro­duc­tion, in the UPM Lap­peen­ranta Biore­finery. A big por­tion of the raw mater­i­al come from UPM’s own pulp mills in Fin­land.

UPM BioVerno renew­able dies­el reduces green­house gas emis­sions by as much as 80 per cent com­pared to tra­di­tion­al dies­el. Based on research, high qual­ity UPM BioVerno works with all dies­el motors just as well as any reg­u­lar dies­el. UPM has a sales agree­ment with NEOT (North European Oil Trade), a whole­sale organ­isa­tion of oil and bio­fuel products.

​“It is great to see how the res­ults of tech­no­logy and product devel­op­ment work that took many years will mater­i­al­ise as a com­mer­cial oper­a­tion. Sus­tain­able wood-based raw mater­i­als are turned into a unique fuel that truly decreases emis­sions and is suit­able for all dies­el cars, buses and trucks,” says Kukkon­en.

Sig­ni­fic­ant invest­ment in bioeconomy
UPM has built a € 175 mil­lion biore­finery without any pub­lic invest­ment grants. Con­struc­tion of the UPM Lap­peen­ranta Biore­finery star­ted in sum­mer 2012 and the found­a­tion stone was laid in Novem­ber of the same year. The con­struc­tion employed nearly 200 people for approx­im­ately two years. The biore­finery will dir­ectly employ nearly 50 people and indir­ectly about 150 people.

​“I want to thank the bio­fuels team and our part­ners for their co-oper­a­tion both in the con­struc­tion and start-up phase. The know-how of many UPMers is com­bined in the Lap­peen­ranta Biore­finery, and it is a clear sign of our company’s will to take strong steps in fur­ther­ing the bioeconomy,” says Vap­pula. UPM
Through the renew­ing of the bio and forest indus­tries, UPM is build­ing a sus­tain­able future across six busi­ness areas: UPM Biore­fin­ing, UPM Energy, UPM Raflatac, UPM Paper Asia, UPM Paper Europe and North Amer­ica and UPM Ply­wood. Our products are made of renew­able raw mater­i­als and are recyc­lable. We serve our cus­tom­ers world­wide. The group employs around 21,000 people and its annu­al sales are approx­im­ately EUR 10 bil­lion. UPM shares are lis­ted on NAS­DAQ OMX Hel­sinki.
UPM GmbH is mem­ber of the net­work IBB.
UPM Bio­fuels
UPM plans to become a major play­er in high qual­ity, advanced bio­fuels for trans­port. Bio­fuels are an essen­tial part of the Biofore strategy. The innov­at­ive wood-based bio­fuels developed by the com­pany and their pro­duc­tion tech­no­lo­gies are part of a sus­tain­able future. UPM’s bio­fuels are fron­trun­ners in qual­ity, usab­il­ity and sus­tain­ab­il­ity. They will sig­ni­fic­antly decrease green­house gas emis­sions com­pared to fossil fuels.