OREANDA-NEWS. September 20, 2013. One of Finland's leading technology and business magazines, Tekniikka&Talous, announced that it has given its Energy Initiative of the Year Award to Lars Peter Lindfors, Neste Oil's Senior Vice President, Technology. Lindfors was given the award for the work that Neste Oil has done in researching new raw materials for producing renewable fuels.

"The development work that Neste Oil has done has made a significant contribution to promoting the use of clean renewable fuels," according to Tekniikka&Talous' Editor-in-Chief, Jyrki Alkio, speaking at the Finnish Energy event in Helsinki.

Developing a new business always calls for a mixture of vision and resources. Neste Oil originally developed its NExBTL renewable fuel refining technology in the 1990s as a by-product of another research project. The technology was patented and in 2006 the company decided to build its first renewable diesel unit at Porvoo in Finland. Since then, Neste Oil has steadily increased its renewable diesel capacity and now has two units at Porvoo, together with the world's largest renewable diesel refineries, in Singapore and Rotterdam. More than EUR 1.5 billion in total has been invested in these facilities.

Within the space of five years, Neste Oil has succeeded in making its Renewable Fuels business both a global operation and a profitable one. In 2012, net sales at Renewable Fuels were more than EUR 2 billion and this year Renewable Fuels is expected to generate an operating profit of more than EUR 200 million. The company's proprietary NExBTL technology is one of the key success factors behind this achievement and enables Neste Oil to produce premium-quality renewable fuel from a very wide range of inputs.

Extending the company's feedstock base is one of Neste Oil's most important goals, and a large proportion of its annual R&D expenditure, which totals some EUR 40 million, is devoted to work on renewable inputs and technology for refining these materials. Neste Oil has increased its use of waste and residues significantly over the last few years and these now account for around 50% of the renewable inputs used by Neste Oil. Lars Peter Lindfors has played an important work in this development work and is responsible for steering one of Neste Oil's key strategic initiatives, its Renewable Feedstocks Value Creation program. He also created Neste Oil's Technology Office, which is responsible for researching and developing new feedstocks and processes.

Tekniikka&Talous presents its Energy Initiative of the Year Award to individuals or organizations in Finland that have made an important contribution in the energy field. The first award was made last year and went to Lauri Tarasti.