The French oil and gas company Total has received an operating license for the €275m La Mède bio-refinery conversion project (France), which is expected to start up by summer 2018. The refinery will have a processing capacity of 650 kt/year and is now authorized to use up to 450 kt of raw vegetable oil for its feedstock supply. The facility's supply mix is scheduled to be made of 60-70% of raw vegetable oil coming from soybean, palm oil, corn oil, rapeseed and sunflower, along with 30-40% animal fat, residues and cooking oil. La Mède will be France's first world-class bio-refinery and is scheduled to have a biodiesel output of 500 kt/year.
The existing 153,000 bbl/d crude oil refinery stopped to process crude at the end of 2016 because it was structurally loss-making and struggling to be economically viable. The growing market share of the new refineries of Asia and the Middle East along with the increasing competition from imports from the US where shale oil production gives refiners a cost advantage made it necessary to find a new business model for the La Mède facility.