Brief profile
Raffinerie Heide GmbH is Germany’s northernmost crude oil refinery. Each year the company processes around 4.5 million tonnes of crude oil at its 134-hectare site. Well over 70 percent of the crude oil is used for fuel production. This means that a substantial proportion of the petrol and diesel fuel consumed in Schleswig-Holstein comes from the company’s refinery. Raffinerie Heide also produces aviation turbine fuel which is supplied primarily to Hamburg Airport. In addition to fuel production, around 450,000 tonnes of petrochemical products are manufactured each year at the refinery in Hemmingstedt. Since summer 2018, Raffinerie Heide has been a partner in the KEROSyN100 research project, where it is responsible for the technological integration of power-to-fuel processes in the refinery and the related commercial analysis.
Activities in the real-world laboratory
A 30-megawatt electrolysis plant is to be built on the Raffinerie Heide site to provide a large-scale demonstration of how hydrogen can be produced and used within the existing industrial process.
Raffinerie Heide has been processing hydrogen since the 1950s and, since the mid-1960s, has operated a hydrogen pipeline some 40 km long between sites in Hemmingstedt and Brunsbüttel. It also owns salt caverns which it intends to have licensed and upgraded for hydrogen storage. The refinery further owns additional facilities (e.g. water treatment plant, control rooms, laboratory and heat recovery system) that will be incorporated in the project.
The company will likewise be contributing its existing knowledge of hydrogen processing and operational management to the project.
Long-term vision
Raffinerie Heide will integrate significant renewable energy sources in the production process and so champion compliance with climate targets. The use of existing regional resources (e.g. wind energy) will generate added value right in the heart of Schleswig-Holstein’s west coast. In this way, and by establishing the west coast as a hydrogen hub, the commercial and social attractiveness of the region is to be further enhanced.
Raffinerie Heide provides its customers with innovative solutions for the use of hydrocarbons by manufacturing synthetic – i.e. sustainable – products. www.heiderefinery.com/en