Perstorp’s Project Air granted environmental permit

The Land and Environment Court at Vänersborg District Court in Vänersborg, Sweden, has granted a changed environmental permit for Perstorp´s chemical plant in Stenungsund to allow for the production of more sustainable methanol. Perstorp sought the changed permit to enable the implementation of its Project Air initiative, due to be commissioned at the end of 2026. The permit also includes construction and operation of an electrolysis plant for the production of hydrogen.

Speciality chemicals innovator Perstorp is constructing a new plant with CCU (Carbon Capture Utilization) at the plant in Stenungsund. Here, carbon dioxide emissions from the company’s own operations, together with other residual streams of biogas and renewable hydrogen, will be turned into sustainable methanol. The methanol will be used as a raw material for other chemicals and makes it possible for thousands of end products and value chains to become more sustainable. This is a major step for Perstorp as a global sustainability leader in the speciality chemicals market and toward ending its dependence on fossil feedstock.

“Methanol is an important raw material for Perstorp. Through Project Air, we will be able to replace all the fossil methanol that we currently use as a raw material in Europe and by doing this reduce 500 000t of greenhouse gas emissions per year. It is an important step for us to reach our climate targets and the fact that we now have our environmental permit in place means that we can continue with finalising our plans,” says Håkan Kihlberg, Vice President Strategic Projects.

“Project Air will contribute to the transformation in a broader sense since our products produced from the Air methanol will be part of a vast range of value chains and end products. This project is followed with great interest by many, as it is scalable and replicable. This initiative will lead to a more sustainable chemical industry by breaking its fossil dependence and finding more circular ways of making its products,” adds Anna Berggren, Vice President Sustainability.

About Project Air

Project Air is a combination of a carbon capture and use (CCU) and a gasification process for the conversion of carbon dioxide, residual streams, renewable hydrogen and biomethane, to be used for the first large-scale production of sustainable methanol of its kind. It will have far-reaching effects in many industrial value chains and will help make Europe less dependent on imported fossil fuels. The project is run by Perstorp together with Uniper, which is building the electrolysis plant. Project Air has been granted €97M from the EU Innovation Fund, and an amount of almost €30M from the Swedish fund Energy Agency, as a part of the initiative Industriklivet.