Elevance Renewable Services and Wilmar International to Build World-Scale Biorefinery

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Elevance Renewable Sciences (Bolingbrook, Illinois), which successfully links the renewable energy and specialty chemicals sectors, has announced an agreement to form a joint venture with Singapore-based international agribusiness group Wilmar International Limited (SIN:F34) to construct a world-scale biorefinery in Surabaya, Indonesia.

The biorefinery will be constructed in the integrated manufacturing complex that Wilmar is constructing in Surabaya, which is Indonesia's second largest city and the capital of the East Java province. The initial production capacity of the commercial-scale refinery will be about 180,000 tons per year, with the ability to upgrade to 360,000 tons each year.

The biorefinery will use the Elevance proprietary technology that is based on the work of the 2005 Nobel Prize (Chemistry) winners, Yves Chauvin, Robert H. Grubbs and Richard R. Schrock.

The Elevance technology uses a chemical-reaction process known as "metathesis," which uses a catalyst to convert the naturally occurring triglycerides and fatty acids in plant, vegetable and animal oils into a variety of fuels and specialty chemicals.

The new biorefinery is scheduled to come online in 2011 and will be capable of using a variety of feedstocks derived from renewable sources such as palm, soybean, jatropha, mustard and waste oils. The technology is particularly efficient with feedstock oils that have a high degree of unsaturation, particularly mono-unsaturation, largely because the metathesis process operates on carbon-carbon bonds found at points of unsaturation.

The output from the biorefinery will include a unique distribution of alpha and olefins used for chemicals and advanced fuels, a premium mixture of oleochemicals and advanced biofuels, and novel multifunctional acids and esters.

The products from the biorefinery are aimed at an already large and still expanding global market for renewable biodiesel and green aviation fuels, in addition to an increasing demand for performance waxes and alternatives for paraffin, beeswax, carnuba and other natural waxes. Di-carboxylic acids, also known as diacids, produced from the biorefinery are also widely used in polymers, epoxies and powder coatings, while the esters produced are aimed at the lubricant, surfactant and personal-care markets.

The joint venture is seen by both companies as a means of increasing marketing and growth opportunities. According to Rahul Kale, the head of Wilmar's Biofuels and Oleochemicals division, "Elevance's unique technology fits our current business and asset footprint very well and provides an exciting growth opportunity."

Elevance CEO K'Lynne Johnson said, "Wilmar represents an ideal partner for the first commercial-scale biorefinery that Elevance will be investing in."

Wilmar is the largest agribusiness group in Asia and was founded in 1991. The company is active in oil-palm cultivation, oilseed crushing, edible oil processing, oleochemicals and biodiesel manufacturing. Wilmar employs more than 80,000 people and has operations in more than 20 countries, with an emphasis on Indonesia, China, Malaysia, India and Europe.

Elevance traces its history to a grant from the United States Department of Energy in 2004 and was named as one of the Top 10 Successful Startups in 2008 by BusinessWeek magazine.

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