TotalEnergies SE has acquired Tecoil, a Finnish company specialized in the production of re-refined base oils (RRBOs), which the company says has the most efficient used oil regeneration process on the market today.
Tecoil currently operates a production facility of 50,000 tons of RRBOs per year in Hamina, eastern Finland. Tecoil has developed its own circular economy network for collecting used lubricants in Europe and supplying its plant, TotalEnergies said in a news release.
Through a process known as “re-refining,” used oils are treated to give them properties comparable to the best virgin base oils. The high-quality base oils are used to make lubricants that meet new customer demand for circularity and sustainability. They significantly reduce the lubricants’ carbon footprint while delivering the level of performance expected and approved by many car manufacturers, according to the release.
“The integration of Tecoil into TotalEnergies will allow us to accelerate the use of RRBOs in the production of our high-end lubricants to meet our customers’ growing demand for increasingly high-performance, environmentally friendly products,” Pierre Duhot, Senior Vice-President Lubricants and Specialties at TotalEnergies, said. “We are delighted to welcome the Tecoil teams and combine their know-how in base oil processing with TotalEnergies’ recognized expertise in the production and distribution of lubricants”.
“Joining TotalEnergies is a great satisfaction and an opportunity to strengthen and develop the activities of Tecoil. It will allow us to jointly build on our work, knowledge, and development of the lubricant sector and meet the new challenges and ambitions of our customers,” Tecoil CEO Juha Kokko said.
According to the company’s website, the Hamina plant uses green hydrogen produced in Tecoil’s own facility. The company aims to reduce the facility’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 60 percent relative to production by the year 2030.
With 42 lubricant production sites worldwide, TotalEnergies partners with companies in the automotive, industrial and marine markets. In June, it launched its first range of lubricants made from premium regenerated base oils, called Quartz EV3R for passenger vehicles and Rubia EV3R for trucks.
Elsewhere in Europe, TotalEnergies is also making moves on the power generation front. The company aims to increase its global power generation capacity to seven gigawatts (GW) gross by acquiring the 1.3 GW West Burton B gas-fired power plant in Nottinghamshire, England.
The 100 percent stock acquisition of operator West Burton Energy from Washington-based EIG Global Energy Partners LLC amounts to GBP 450 million ($573 million), the French energy giant said in a June statement. Commissioned in 2013, the plant supplies some 1.8 million homes through three combined-cycle gas turbines (CCGT). The plant also has a 49-megawatt battery storage system installed in 2018.
In Central Europe, a TotalEnergies joint venture (JV) is planning to study the implementation of a large green hydrogen project named H2 Notos in Tunisia for export to Central Europe through pipelines.
TE H2, a joint venture between TotalEnergies and EREN Groupe, and Austria’s leading electricity company Verbund have inked a memorandum of understanding with the Republic of Tunisia for the study, TotalEnergies said in May.
Targeting to produce 200,000 tons of green hydrogen annually during its initial phase, the project has the potential to scale up production to one million tons per year in South Tunisia. The project will have access to the European market through the SoutH2 Corridor, a hydrogen pipeline project connecting North Africa to Italy, Austria, and Germany, which is expected to be commissioned around 2030.