Czechia’s largest refinery and petrochemical company ORLEN Unipetrol Group has spent 2 billion crowns (approximately 78.7 million euros) on environmental protection and support last year.
Emissions into the air went significantly down due to the commissioning of new energy facilities and refurbishment of the existing ones. Together with its parent company, the Group intends to be emissions-neutral by 2050.
“We want to be emissions-neutral by 2050 at the latest,” commented ORLEN Unipetrol CEO Tomasz Wiatrak. “Therefore, we have launched a range of projects to streamline our operations and improve our energy efficiency in line with the EU requirements. These projects are set to contribute to the fulfilment of this ambitious goal at the Group-wide level. One of the current investments is a new steam-and-gas heating plant to ensure the supply of steam and electricity for Chempark in Litvínov, which can also burn hydrogen. Thus, the total environmental expenditure in the ORLEN Unipetrol Group reached 2 billion crowns in 2020.”
Compared to the previous decade, the newly installed state-of-the-art technologies with a high degree of raw-material conversion, lower waste production and high energy efficiency contributed to the overall reduction in operating expenses that stabilised at 855 million crowns (approximately 33.6 million euros) last year. Pollutant emissions into the environment have also stabilised over the past five years due to the extensive greening investments. As a result, a significant year-on-year decline could be seen in NOx and SO2 values (by 13 per cent and 26 per cent, respectively).
ORLEN Unipetrol is also active in environmental protection through its CSR projects: beekeeping, stocking the rivers Bílina and Elbe with fish and support of peregrine falcon nesting.