4. Marco teórico
4.4. Microbiota de los manglares y su importancia
The hydrotreatment of bio-based oils involves the conversion of vegetable or waste oils and fats into diesel and jet fuel, generally referred to as hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO) when converted to diesel, or hydroprocessed esters and fatty acids (HEFA) when converted to jet (Synthetic Paraffinic Kerosene, SPK).
Hydroprocessing uses hydrogen to convert unsaturated compounds such as alkenes and aromatics into saturated alkanes (paraffins) and cycloalkanes, which are more stable and less reactive. The conversion is usually a two-staged process.
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Data from Joanneum research (2016), Improving the sustainability of Fatty Acid Methyl Esters. Available from https://ec.europa.eu/energy/sites/ener/files/documents/Technical%20report.pdf. E4tech analysis using UCO feedstock and 0.65 capacity scaling factor for 200kta production cost calculations. Capex per year assume 5% interest payment over the plant lifetime of 25 years
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EU plants data from GAIN (2017), RoW plants from various sources, including GAIN (2017) Biofuel annuals for Australia Australia, Russia, Philippines, China, Thailand, Peru, India, Indonesia, Colombia, Malaysia, Brazil, Japan, and Argentina; ISCC (2018) Valid certificates for biodiesel plants for South Africa, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Singapore, New Zealand, Egypt, Korea, Pakistan, South Africa, Tunisia, and United Arab Emirates, available from https://www.iscc-system.org/certificates/valid-certificates/. EU production data from GAIN (2017), Global production data from F.O. Licht (2018). CAPEX data from Section 1.1.4. Biofuel price assumed to be EUR 781.5/tonne, from PRIMA (2018), PRIMA Low Carbon Fuels and Feeds Report
In the first stage, hydrotreatment, hydrogen is added to saturate the double bonds of the unsaturated oil triglycerides, and to remove the propane backbone to cleave the saturated oil triglycerides to fatty acids. The fatty acids either undergo hydro-oxygenation (by addition of more hydrogen the oxygen leaves as H2O) or decarboxylation (oxygen leaves as CO2 without further
addition of hydrogen), or a combination of the two. The result is a mixture of straight chain, branched chain, and cyclic paraffinic hydrocarbons.
The second stage involves alkane isomerisation and cracking, bringing the biofuel to a quality that equals or surpasses specifications for conventional petroleum fuels.
Depending on the plant configuration, the facility can be a dedicated HVO plant or a co-production plant with different yields of HEFA and HVO as products, as well as other co-products such as bio- naphtha and bio-propane. The plant can either be located as a separate unit at an existing oil refinery (allowing for the symbiotic use of hydrogen) or be built as a dedicated standalone plant.
Figure 42 Value chain for hydroprocessing of residual / waste oils and fats The hydroprocessing of non-food and non-feed biogenic feedstocks into HVO has been
commercialised by many companies, with many examples of operating plants in the US, Europe and Asia. The technology is at TRL 9 (CRL 3).
The demand for renewable jet fuel is currently low but increasing. Therefore whilst technically few modifications to HVO plants are required in order to produce HEFA, only one plant worldwide is currently optimised to produce HEFA. HEFA-SPK is therefore slightly less mature than HVO at TRL 8 (CRL 2).
4.13.2 Major players in this technology
The majority of the major players active in hydroprocessing are either in the USA or Europe (Table 37). Neste is the largest single player, with four operational plants. Apart from Neste, the other players operate one plant each, and ENI has one further plant under construction. Alt Air Fuels developed a HVO plant in the USA, but the company and all its assets have recently been sold to World Energy, so is not included as a separate entry in the database. It should be noted that in other publications hydro-processing and co-processing of oils through a refinery are considered as one fuel category as the process is similar. In this report co-processing is considered separately in section 4.1.4.
HVO plants can usually accept both waste and virgin oils, therefore the capacities given in Table 37, Figure 43 and Figure 44 are for the plant as a whole, representing the amount of waste-based HVO that could be produced, although in reality many plants do not use 100% waste-based feedstock.
Where available, the percentage of feedstock that is currently waste or residue is provided in the database, although this can fluctuate over time.
Table 37: Major players active in the hydroprocessing industry
Company name
Location of headquarters (country)
Total capacity in the EU* (ktonnes/year)
Total capacity in the RoW* (ktonnes/year)
Planned Current Planned Current
Aemetis USA - - - -
Diamond Green
Diesel USA - - - 812
Emerald Biofuels USA - - 325 -
ENI Italy 1000 421 - -
Neste Finland - 1648 - 910
Renewable Energy
Group (REGI) USA - - - 221
SG Preston USA - - 354 -
Sinopec China - - 30 -
Total S.A. France 650 - - -
UPM Biofuels Finland - 100 - -
World Energy USA - - - 128
‘Current capacity’ covers plants which are operational and in commissioning, ‘planned capacity’ covers plants which are planned and under construction
4.13.2.1
Strengths and weaknesses of key players
Although the number of players in the HVO market is not large, the plant capacities they have developed and their revenues are large in comparison to most other pathways. Some companies are reasonably small and only focused on running one plant, whereas others have multiple facilities and are more active in developing new projects. Neste has long been a strong player in HVO production, and has shifted over time from virgin vegetable oils to focus increasingly on waste oils/fats. Other players have not spread globally as Neste have done, and have remained in the US or Europe. Nevertheless, it is a sign of strength in the industry that an increasing number of very large oil companies (such as ENI, Total and Sinopec) are beginning or increasing their HVO production – although the exact mix of feedstocks that will be used in their new plants is not yet certain.
4.13.3 Current and planned production capacity
There is around 2000 ktonnes/year current installed hydroprocessing capacity in the EU, and a similar amount outside the EU. As noted above, Figure 44 reflects all hydro-processing capacity regardless of the feedstock used. The actual production of HVO from waste fats and oils is likely to be substantially lower.
The majority of the existing EU installed capacity is run by Neste, with additionally one plant run by ENI and one plant by UPM. The total 1650 ktonnes/year of planned capacity in the EU is comprised of one plant by ENI and one by Total, both of which are currently under construction.
Outside of the EU the current installed capacity is operated by Neste, Renewable Energy Group and Diamond Green Diesel. There may in addition be HVO production in Brazil, but production capacity
could not be verified. Whilst it is implied in Figure 43 that there is no planned capacity outside of the EU, Aemetis do have a plant in commissioning but it is not included in the figure as the capacity is not known.
Figure 43 Hydroprocessing: current installed capacity, planned capacity and production volumes for the EU28 compared to the rest of the world
The split of capacity between EU Member States is largely determined by where the key companies are based. ENI has one operating plant and one very large planned plant in Italy, Total operate in France, and Neste and UPM operate predominantly in Finland. In addition Neste has a very large operational plant in Rotterdam in the Netherlands.
Figure 44 Hydroprocessing: current installed capacity, planned capacity and production volumes by EU Member State, covering top 6 MSs by installed capacity
4.13.4 Plant and production costs
Capex costs were available for first commercial and commercial hydroprocessing plants. First commercial plants range from 100 to 421 ktonnes/year. These are larger than some of the
commercial plants, because they represent first commercial plants for a given company. Because of this large capacity range, the capex cost range is also large. In general the lower end of the capex
cost range corresponds to the smaller capacity and the upper end corresponds to a higher plant capacity.
Similarly for the commercial plants, those at with lower capacity tend to have lower costs, as would be expected from a fairly mature technology.
Table 38: Capex and opex costs for hydroprocessing plants Technology
status
Plant capacity (ktonnes/year)
Capex cost (million €2016)
Opex cost (million €2016 / year)
Pilot N/A N/A N/A
Demonstration N/A N/A N/A
First Commercial 30-421 74-388 N/A
Commercial 215-1218 98-707 N/A
Data is based on all plants, whether planned, operating or shut; note that the min and max of the cost range do not necessarily correspond to the min and max plant capacity within that range
4.13.5 EU market share
In terms of number of companies, the EU market share in hydroprocessing is roughly similar to that of the rest of the world, but considering number of plants, capacity and capex of those plants, the EU is currently the dominant region globally.
Table 39: EU28 market share of hydroprocessing industry. Number of companies (HQ) Number of plants* Production capacity *(ktonnes/year) Known economic value** (million €) EU 4 7 3,819 - Rest of World 7 8 2,780 - Global total 11 15 6,599 - % EU 36% 47% 58% -
*Number of plants and production capacity refers to plants which are currently operational, in commissioning, under construction or planned; **Known economic value was calculated based on known production volumes and estimated 2G biofuel prices. For prices and methodology see Appendix C.