Sweden’s Perstorp to produce biomethanol at Stenungsund, includes CCU unit

LONDON (ICIS)–Perstorp plans to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 500,000 tonnes/year by producing biomethanol using a combination of green feedstocks, including carbon coming from a carbon capture and utilisation (CCU) unit, the Swedish chemicals producer said on Tuesday.

Feedstocks for the biomethanol would include carbon dioxide (C02), residue streams, renewable hydrogen and biomethane.

The facilities are to be named Project AIR and will be in Stenungsund, south Sweden. Start-up is projected to be 2025.

The project is subject to receiving funding from the EU’s Innovation Fund; Perstorp filed an application at the end of October, a spokesperson said.

The Innovation Fund, which has been assigned €1.0bn from the EU budget for its first round of clean tech projects, has had 311 applications worth nearly €22bn, according to its official site. Results will be published in the first quarter of 2021.

Perstorp said Germany‘s Fortum and Finland’s Uniper would be the project’s suppliers of green hydrogen, produced via electrolysis; Denmark’s Nature Energy would be the supplier of biogas.

“Methanol is one of the most important raw materials for the chemical industry. Project AIR aims to substitute all the 200,000 tonnes of fossil methanol that Perstorp uses annually in Europe as a raw material for chemical products,” said the company.