Mitsubishi, Neste aim to boost bio-naphtha supplies

Japanese trading house Mitsubishi and Finnish refiner Neste plan to boost sales of Neste's biomass-based naphtha by enhancing their partnership in Japan.

The companies signed a partnership agreement on an unspecified date, aiming to co-operate on prompting a switch from conventional petroleum naphtha to Neste's bio-naphtha. They plan to encourage Japanese downstream companies or users of petrochemical goods and plastics, like food and beverage suppliers, apparel firms and electric appliance manufacturers, to introduce bio-naphtha into their supply chains.

Mitsubishi and Neste have already partnered on delivering bio-naphtha to produce renewable paraxylene for Japanese consumers Goldwin and Suntory.

Japanese companies are increasingly attempting to incorporate bio-naphtha for their decarbonisation strategies. Japanese petrochemical producer Resonac has produced biomass-based olefins like ethylene and propylene since June by purchasing bio-naphtha from Neste. Fellow petrochemical producer Mitsui Chemicals bought bio-naphtha from Neste to process it at its Osaka cracker. Idemitsu and Toray have been partnering to produce styrene monomer and acrylonitrile butadiene styrene resin from bio-naphtha.

Japan imported 6mn t of petroleum naphtha during January-May, down by 5.9pc from the same period in 2023, according to finance ministry data.

By Nanami Oki