Rerefinery Planned in Turkey

By Will Beverina

Turkish waste oil collector Tayras announced that it is building an API Group II rerefinery with enough capacity to process 20 percent of the used lubricants that the country generates. The company claims it will be the country’s first rerefinery.

In a letter to Europe’s waste oil rerefining industry association, GEIR, Istanbul-based Tayras said the facility will be operational in Oct. 2020 and that it will have capacity to process 60,000 metric tons per year of waste oil. Tayras CEO Mehmet Afsin told Lube Report the project will make 42,000 t/y of Group II and that its price tag is U.S. $38 million.

Turkey generates around 300,000 t/y of waste oil, according to Afsin.

Afsin said the facility will use the most current multiple distillation and hydro processing technology. In addition to automated waste oil receiving, storage and refining units, it will include a 3,000 square-foot research and development lab accredited to the ISO/IEC 17025 specification. Hydrogen used by the plant will be made from natural gas using steam methane reformer technology. All gases and wastes are processed in a thermal oxidizer via a closed system that eliminates emissions, Afsin said.

Though Turkey covers an area of over 300,000 square miles, Afsin said that half of the country’s lubricants are consumed in the northwest, in the Marmara region that includes Istanbul. The rerefinery will be located next to a railway and will lean on Turkey’s train system for waste oil transportation.

In the statement emailed to GEIR, the company said Turkey’s waste oil legislation is in line with European Union’s Waste Directive, which encourages members to recycle used lubricants and which gives preference to processing them into base oils rather than industrial fuel. Tayras said most waste oil in Turkey is now used as fuel in cement factories or as a supplement to diesel.