Oy Kati Ab, a drilling contractor, has started to use biofuel in the drill rig operating at Keliber’s lithium exploration site in Central Ostrobothnia, Finland.

Tapani Niskakangas, Acting Managing Director at Kati, said: “Taking the environment into consideration and minimising the negative impacts is a guiding principle for us at Kati as well as Keliber. When we learned that Neste MY Non Road Diesel™ was available also in northern Finland this autumn, Keliber was the first company we proposed to introduce it, and we received a positive answer right away.”

According to calculations made at Kati, the switch from regular fuel oil to biofuel makes it possible to reduce emissions by at least 50%. It is estimated that, during 2020, drilling at the Keliber work site generated emissions of 78.04 t of CO2e, of which 95.2% was caused by fuel usage. If biofuel had been used, the estimated emissions would have been 37.90 t CO2e or 51% less. The emission reduction (40.14 t CO2e) is equivalent to a 286,714.3 km journey by car.

Keliber’s CEO, Hannu Hautala, regards the fuel switch as a good example of sustainable operation, which Keliber is committed to: “We are continuously looking for ways to reduce our environmental impact and improve our operations when new possibilities emerge. I am happy about this opportunity to switch to renewable energy at the drilling site.”

Kati started to use biofuel at the Keliber site during the second week of December. According to Niskakangas, the switch was easy: the machines run on biofuel as smoothly as they do on fossil fuels. And there is an added safety benefit as biofuels do not endanger water organisms or human health. This more than offsets the additional 25% price tag for biofuel over fossil fuels, which translates into an increase of about 2% in the total drilling cost.

Niskakangas said: “Keliber is the first of our customers to use biofuel. We are interested in expanding its use, but its popularity has a lot to do with logistics. Today, we transport the MY renewable fuel from Kemi harbour to our storage tank in Kalajoki.”

Kati has been working with Keliber on its lithium project for some 20 years. In recent years, Keliber has had continuous exploration and resource drilling operations, and the annual total drilling has varied from 10-20 km.

The planned Keliber operations include lithium mine sites and a concentrator plant in Kaustinen, Kokkola and Kruunupyy, and a lithium hydroxide plant in Kokkola.