Sweden-based Scandinavian Biogas has announced plans to construct a new bio-LNG plant in Mönsterås, Sweden, with an investment of approximately $75 million, aiming for a launch in the fourth quarter of 2024, reported LNGPrime.
In 2021, the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency provided the company’s unit with 154 million Swedish crowns (around $15 million) in investment support for this bio-LNG project. At that time, Scandinavian Biogas indicated it was nearing a final investment decision, collaborating with local farmers on development.
On Tuesday, the company confirmed that the Portuguese firm Efacec, in partnership with Swedish company Multibygg, will oversee the construction of the facility, while Wärtsilä will supply the technology for gas upgrading and liquefaction.
The new plant will have the capacity to convert 300,000 tonnes of local manure and biomass into approximately 120 GWh of liquefied biogas, or bio-LNG, annually. This output is expected to primarily serve the heavy transport and shipping sectors, with 120 GWh equating to about 12 million liters of diesel. Additionally, the facility will produce refined biofertilizer for local agricultural use, contributing to a sustainable cycle, the media report further added.
Scandinavian Biogas holds an estimated 86% stake in the production company Scandinavian Biogas Mönsterås, with local farmers owning the remainder through their cooperative, Mönsterås Biogas. The total estimated cost for the new facility is about 760 million Swedish crowns (approximately $74.6 million).
This development aligns with Scandinavian Biogas’s goal of achieving a production capacity of 3 TWh by 2030, predominantly from bio-LNG.
In a separate update, Scandinavian Biogas reported it anticipates “weak” results for the fourth quarter of 2022 due to production challenges at its bio-LNG facility in Skogn, Norway, as well as reduced output in Sweden stemming from high glycerin prices. The company noted that technical issues with the liquefaction component at Skogn II have resulted in lost bio-LNG production during this period. While construction at Skogn II is progressing as planned, the technology supplier has encountered problems that limited the conversion of substrates into bio-LNG.
Scandinavian Biogas expects these issues to be resolved by the first quarter of this year. The Skogn facility is the largest operated by the company. Last August, Wärtsilä announced that Norway-based Biokraft, a subsidiary of Scandinavian Biogas, had successfully doubled the liquefaction capacity at the Skogn plant following the launch of a second production train. The Finnish firm was awarded a contract in 2021 to enhance the plant’s capacity from 25 tons to 50 tons per day, primarily for the heavy transport sector.
