Estonian biotech company Fibenol has begun feasibility and environmental impact studies at the Valmiera industrial park, to determine its suitability for the potential establishment of a biorefinery, the company has announced.
Following the public tender, a construction rights agreement was signed on August 27 between subsidiary Fibenol Latvia Ltd and local government in Valmiera, around 50 kilometers southwest of Valga.
The agreement grants the company the right to initiate all required preparatory work for executing the actual, large-scale construction project.
The development of the proposed plant and the project’s scope is a long-term endeavor for both parties.
If the feasibility study yields positive results, production is expected to begin around 2030.
In March, Fibenol announced plans to invest EUR 700 million in building a biorefinery in Latvia rather than Estonia, despite one of the company’s owners, Raul Kirjanen, as recently as 2022, not ruling out the possibility of the plant being built north of the border.
A biorefinery is a facility, which converts biological material from living or recently living organisms into bio-based feedstocks. (ERR)