S-Oil recycles used cooking oil to produce low-carbon fuels

S-Oil has begun recycling used cooking oil, palm oil byproducts, waste plastic-based pyrolysis oil and other bio-based feedstocks to boost its production of low-carbon fuels and eco-friendly chemical products, according to the country’s major refiner, Monday.

The company said it began on the same day adding the feedstocks into its currently up-and-running refining process. The firm called this dual-treatment method “co-processing.” The process will increase the company’s capacity to produce biofuels with low carbon intensity, such as sustainable aviation oil and next-generation biodiesel as well as bio-based petrochemical feedstocks like naphtha and polypropylene.

The company said co-processing bio-based feedstocks has never been done in the country’s refinery industry.

The company last December acquired approval for the country’s regulatory sandbox with its co-processing of bio-based feedstocks. It previously acquired the same approval last July with its co-processing of waste plastic-based pyrolysis oil. On the back of the legal foundations, the company started upgrading its facilities for the new processes.

With its regulatory sandbox, the company has two years to test ratios of its new mixtures of co-processed oils and develop environmentally non-hazardous products.

The company’s latest initiatives to introduce and manufacture carbon-free products include forming a new partnership last December with DS Dansuk, a local developer of biofuel, battery and plastic recycling technology, to expand its supply chain for materials to make low-carbon fuel and chemical products. More previously in 2021, it signed a partnership with Samsung C&T to jointly develop and manufacture hydrogen and eco-friendly biofuels.