The complex on the site of the HOLBORN Europa refinery in Hamburg is scheduled to go into operation in early 2027. With the lifting of a tank container onto its foundation, HOLBORN has today reached a milestone in the development of a GDP (Green Diesel Production) complex on the refinery site in the Port of Hamburg.

The complex on the site of the HOLBORN Europa refinery in Hamburg is scheduled to go into operation in early 2027 and will produce 220,000 tonnes of high-quality renewable diesel and sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) from residual and waste materials each year.

On the morning of Saturday, 20 April 2024, the first of five scheduled internal fire alarm drills took place at the HOLBORN Europa refinery in the Port of Hamburg. The scenario: At pumping station 7, diesel fuel leaks from one of the pumps due to a leak and then ignites.

Traditionally, the "Hamburger Abendblatt" newspaper publishes a ranking of the 200 largest companies in the Hanseatic city at the end of each year: HOLBORN Europa Raffinerie GmbH is ranked 183rd for 2023, moving up one place.

The year is 1988: In soccer, FC St. Pauli makes it into the 1st Bundesliga, Werder Bremen becomes German champion, and the Dutch win the European Cup. 1988 was also an eventful year for the mineral oil industry: leaded regular petrol became banned in Germany from 1 February onwards. On 10 March, a tank exploded at the Shell tank farm in Flörsheim, and on 6 July, the Piper Alpha oil rig in the North Sea was destroyed by fire.

Like any private household, the HOLBORN Europa refinery has a keen interest in minimising energy losses in its process plants. One effective way of doing this is to preheat the combustion air for process furnaces. In the current project, "Expansion of furnace air preheating", the Powerformer furnaces are being optimised in terms of energy efficiency.

HOLBORN Europa Raffinerie GmbH is expanding the existing flue gas cleaning line of the FCC plant with a new waste heat boiler and a scrubber stage for removing sulphur oxides and ammonia from the flue gases.

The HOLBORN Europa refinery will gradually shut down its facilities from 26 August onwards in order to carry out its five-yearly overhaul. The 2023 turnaround, or TA2023 for short, will last until the end of October. Preparations and planning began three years before the planned shutdown.