Borealis in Finland

The Borealis' presence in Porvoo, Finland is the northernmost location of the company’s production facilities. In addition to serving the Nordic markets with polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP), it is ideally situated to serve the Russian and eastern European industrial markets.

Around 70% of Borealis’ production in Finland is exported, with our materials in Finland being 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. Today, Borealis is located at the 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 (for phenol, acetone, benzene and cumene). This is the only plant producing these products in Borealis’ European operating network;
• two plants for polyethylene (PE);
• one plant for polypropylene (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’s oil refinery.

In operating the plants, economy and efficiency come through the centralized 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. It also includes catalyst scale-up facilities and fully integrated Borstar PE and PP semicommercial pilot plant lines.

The Innovation Centre also has experienced groups of people working with: 

• Intellectual Property Rights
• Projects & Operations Support
• Licensing & Catalyst business
• Business support for PE Extrusion Coating and Steel Pipe Coating