Atlas Copco Gas and Process, whose offerings include LNG equipment, will be supplying carbon-dioxide compression to one of Europe’s most ambitious renewable biofuels plant projects.
The Atlas Copco equipment will be used in an 820,000-tons-a-year biofuels facility, located at the Shell Energy and Chemicals Park Rotterdam, the Netherlands, formerly known as the Pernis refinery.
Atlas Copco's LNG offerings include the GZ oil-free compressor for the LNG carrier market and boil-off gas handling and fuel gas boosting.
“Once completed, the facility will be among Europe’s largest for the production of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), renewable diesel and renewable naptha made from biowaste,” said Atlas Copco.
The company noted that a facility of this size could produce enough renewable diesel to avoid 2,800,000 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions a year.
That’s the equivalent of taking more than 1 million European cars off the roads. Atlas Copco said its turbocompressor will also support CO2 transportation.
“In addition to the fuel production, an essential building block of Shell’s endeavour is the carbon capture and pipeline transport of CO2,” said the Cologne, Germany-based company.
Plant processes
“The different plant processes, including blue hydrogen, will be compressed to a pressure of 42.5 bar by the Atlas Copco Gas and Process’ five-stage turbocompressor. The machine is designed to compress 43.5 t/h,” said the company.
Atlas Copco said the new plant was expected to start production in 2024 and will help both the Netherlands and the rest of Europe in meeting emissions reduction targets.
“It will produce low-carbon fuels such as renewable diesel from waste in the form of used cooking oil, waste animal fat and other industrial and agricultural residual products, using advanced technology developed by Shell,” explained Atlas Copco.
As part of its strategy, Shell is currently transforming its more than one dozen refineries into five energy and chemicals parks.
Following the launch of the Energy and Chemicals Park Rheinland, in Germany, the new Energy and Chemicals Park Rotterdam is the second such park to be announced.
“Meanwhile, with its involvement in this project, Atlas Copco extends its support of Carbon Capture Utilization and Storage (CCUS) installations worldwide,” said the company.
“For several decades now, Atlas Copco turbocompressors have been utilized in CO2 applications across industries such as hydrocarbon processing, power generation and in fertilizers,” it added.
