A waste oil rerefinery and lubricant manufacturing complex will be constructed in Mersin province in southeastern Turkey, the local government said in a recent news release. The project will be operated Shah Oil.
The 50 million lira (U.S. $1.9 million) complex will process 24,000 tons of waste oil annually, and have capability to produce 14,400 t/y of base oils and 2,400 t/y of bitumen for production of asphalt emulsion, Energy Diary news outlet reported in early July.
The complex is also projected to produce finished lubes and greases.
“In addition, the complex will produce 21,150 tons of lubricants and 5,288 tons of greases annually. The company will use the base oils in-house to produce finished products,” the report states. It adds that the rest of the base oils, about 8,000 t/y, will be procured from domestic or foreign markets.
The rerefinery will be located in the Akdeniz district of Mersin province, located on Turkey’s southeastern Mediterranean cost, about 300 kilometers from the border with Syria. The 2,000 -square-meters indoor facility will house a blending plant, reactors for production of greases, asphalt emulsion production area, filling, packaging and shipping lines. The complex will also include a modern lab. The open area of the complex will include a waste oil tank park, the rerefining unit with a cooling tower and a transient waste storage area.
The local government said that an environmental impact assessment for this project is coordinated through the General Directorate of Environmental Impact Assessment, an agency that issues licenses for waste oil collection and recycling.
Turkey has one large base oil rerefinery located 180 kilometers southeast of Istanbul. Operated by Tayras, it has capacity to process 60,000 t/y of waste oil to make 45,000 t/y of API Group II base oil.
Turkey has well-developed environmental laws regarding the waste oil collection and recycling. Many new projects for waste oil recycling have been announced in the last several months. Investors see waste oil collection and recycling as a potentially lucrative business because of the strict mandates for waste oil collection.
The adoption of two landmark policies in 2019 – the Zero Waste and the Waste Oil Management regulations – received credit for increases in the amount of waste oil being collected and rerefined in Turkey, bringing it closer to the standards of the European Union.
The law set this requirement at 2% in 2023, 4% in 2024 and 6% in 2025, after it was amended in January 2023. The previous requirement for 2023 was set at 25% but many industry players deemed it excessive and demanded a decrease to a more realistic waste oil collection volume as a portion of the total production or imports.