Borealis in Finland

Borealis' has production facilities in Porvoo, Finland, the northernmost location of the company’s facilities. While providing manufacturing services with the production of polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP), it benefits from the proximity to the Nordic markets and is ideally situated to serve the Russian and Eastern European industrial markets.

Around 70% of Borealis’ production in Finland is exported and mainly used to produce pipes, extrusion coating for steel pipes and packaging, as well as wire and cable sheathings.

Located on the coast, 40 km east of Helsinki, Porvoo has provided a home for Borealis for the past 35 years. The production facilities are located in a very large industrial area, which covers some 1,300 hectares and hosts many of the internationally-known players in oil refining, as well as chemical and polymer production.

Five production plants

Borealis in Finland is a fully integrated petrochemical complex comprising five plants. These include:

• a cracker for the production of olefins (ethylene, propylene and butadiene);
• a phenol and aromatics plant (that produces phenol, acetone, benzene and cumene). This is the only plant producing these products in Borealis’ European operating network;
• two plants for PE;
• one plant for PP.

Feedstock for the PE and PP plants is produced by the cracker, which started up in 1971. The cracker derives its feedstock from the nearby Neste Oil refinery.

In operating the plants, economy and efficiency are achieved through the centralised purchase of steam, electricity and other infrastructural services from within the Porvoo industrial area.

Innovation Centre

In addition to the production facilities, Borealis in Finland also has an Innovation Centre for catalyst and process research, features catalyst scale-up facilities and fully integrated Borstar PE and PP semicommercial pilot plant lines.

These services are provided to the Borealis Group based on contract R&D.