Pöyry analysis of Processum’s Flagship Biorefinery project show possibility for commercial-scale facility

In Sweden, the project Flagship Biorefinery has been carried out in order to investigate the prerequisites to realize a new, full scale biorefinery based on sustainable wood raw material from Swedish forests.

The biorefinery would produce approximately 1 million tons per year of cellulose for textile applications in addition to a range of bioproducts such as automotive biofuel, protein for feed industry and lignosulphonate for advanced dispersion applications.

Led by Processum, the project has been supported by 13 companies representing a complete value chain from the forestry to chemical industry, as well as other stakeholders.

Pöyry performed the assignment to carry out a feasibility study which has been presented to the project steering group. The results show that an investment in the proposed biorefinery can be profitable and provide positive contributions to a future bioeconomy, and according to Processum, the group found the results of the feasibility study to be “very interesting.”

The next step is to appoint a project organization with the special task to investigate how to safeguard sufficient supply of feedstock and how to finance the investment. It is estimated that this investigation will take up to three years and will be the basis for a decision whether to invest or not. A possible decision to go ahead with the project means that the start-up of the large scale biorefinery will take place in 2023 at the earliest, provided that the location has been decided and environmental permits are granted.