Preem provides update on the expansion of Preemraff Lysekil and sets ambitious climate targets

Preem today supplements the permit application to the Land and Environmental Court and details the proposed expansion of the Lysekil refinery, including its planned future climate initiatives. Preem’s goal is to become climate neutral by 2045, in line with the Swedish climate goals.

 There will be no doubling of emissions. This is stated in Preem's supplement to the Land and Environmental Court. Instead, much more climate-adapted plans are presented for the Lysekil refinery. The planned expansion will be reduced by 20 percent at the same time as a number of measures are presented to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. In addition, the supplement clarifies the new extension’s role in the sustainable transition from fossil to renewable.

“It is important to emphasize that our environmental application applies to the entire Lysekil refinery and is partly about the purification of heavy oil, but it is also crucial for us to switch production from fossil to renewable raw materials. The expanded facility will be able to process a variety of complex raw materials, including residual products from forest industries and difficult-to-process raw materials such as pyrolysis oil,” says Petter Holland, President and CEO Preem.

The current environmental permit does not allow the production of renewable fuels at the Lysekil refinery. A new permit would make this possible, but the production change has been delayed as a result of the extended permit process.

“It is crucial that Preemraff Lysekil obtains a new environmental permit, to enable a transition to renewables here as well, and not only at our Gothenburg refinery. If we get permission to expand the Lysekil refinery and begin working with renewable feedstocks, we will quickly see a drastic reduction in the refinery’s net greenhouse gas emissions,” says Holland.

Preem's refineries are already some of the world's most carbon dioxide efficient, and the supplement to the Land and Environmental Court Preem also clarifies an investment in carbon capture for storage, so called Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), at the Lysekil refinery. A full-scale plant is planned for 2025, with the capacity to capture 500,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide each year. In the longer term, more CCS plants are planned at Preem's refineries, in order to meet Sweden's climate goals and make the refineries climate neutral.

“We see excellent potential in carbon capture and if we are able to get started quickly, this technology can help our refineries become climate neutral even before 2040,” says Holland.

Preem's goal is to be climate neutral by 2045

Sweden's climate target implies that it will have zero net greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere by 2045. Preem has therefore set an ambitious climate goal: to become the world's first climate-neutral petroleum and biofuels company, with net zero emissions in its entire value chain before 2045.

“Preem's vision is to lead the transition to a sustainable society. When we set an ambitious climate target, we show the world that we are serious about our part in the transition. The combination of a rapid expansion of production capacity for green liquid fuels and the capture of an ever-increasing volume of renewable as fossil carbon molecules in production, will enable us to achieve significant reductions in carbon emissions in the next ten years,” says Holland.

“Preem has concrete plans to increase its production of renewable fuels to 5 million tonnes per year by 2030, provided the environmental permits we applied for Lysekil and Gothenburg go through. This increase would lead to a carbon dioxide reduction of 12.5 million tonnes per year at our customer-use stage and clearly shows the important role our efforts play in enabling Sweden to achieve its climate targets,” concludes Petter Holland, CEO.