Universal Environmental Services has built up a supply of used oil for its rerefinery project in Peachtree City, Georgia, which it expects to be operational in 2013.
Plans call for a plant that can process 30 million gallons of waste oil per year and produce API Group II base oil. Our rerefinery project is going according to plan, and we intend to keep our deadline of being 100 percent operational by Q2 2013, UES CEO Juan Fritschy told Lube Report. The mechanical completion will be done by December 2012, and then the engineers need a few months for start-up, commissioning and a full performance test.
We now control 120 percent of the supply we need for the rerefinery, and the recent market changes gave us the opportunity to gain substantial market share in some parts of our footprint, Fritschy said. On top of that, we have been conducting detailed dialogues with potential buyers of our base oil and by-products. We supplied samples and got a lot of interest.
In 2011, Avista Oil AG of Uetz, Germany acquired a 50 percent stake in Universal Environmental Services LLC, enabling UES to increase its used oil collection business and plan for the base oil rerefinery. Avista now owns 86 percent of the company.
Avista has two rerefineries in Europe: Mineralol-Raffinerie Dollbergen GmbH in Dollbergen, Germany, with a 3,300 b/d of Group I capacity, and Dansk Olie Genbrug A/S in Kahlundborg, Denmark, with a 800 b/d of Group I capacity.
Nine Avista engineers who built the rerefineries in Germany and Denmark will be in Peachtree City for two years to supervise construction, delivery, operations and training for the rerefinery there.