Flying Forest picks Casale for Finnish bio methanol plant

Flying Forest has appointed Casale as integrator and technology provider for the Pre FEED of Project Loonbird, a biomass to methanol complex planned for Iisalmi, Finland, and targeted to start operations by 2030. The plant is designed to process around 210,000 t/y of non recyclable forestry biomass and 17,000 t/y of renewable hydrogen to produce approximately 180,000 t/y of bio e methanol for marine and, later, aviation fuels.

Casale will oversee overall process integration, including biomass handling, gasification, syngas conditioning, electrolysis integration, methanol synthesis and distillation, as well as utilities and offsites. Forestry residues will be gasified using oxygen blown technology from Sumitomo SHI FW, with syngas cleaning, CO₂ capture and conditioning provided by Honeywell UOP. The conditioned syngas will be combined with renewable hydrogen from electrolysis, with the system sized to supply oxygen to the gasification and reforming sections while avoiding CO shift under normal operation.