In 2022, activities of the R&D&I area focused on developing its own technologies and solutions originated from science and on strengthening the R&D ecosystem and tools used to acquire innovations.
R&D investments
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Acceleration programmes, for technology start-ups offering solutions ready for testing and scaling up as part of the ORLEN Group’s production, logistics and sales infrastructure were successfully expanded. Their implementation makes it possible to quickly validate solutions that suit the ORLEN Group’s long-term development plans in areas such as decarbonisation, digitalisation, operational efficiency, sustainable development, circular economy and energy generation. In 2022, more than 100 technological challenges were defined as part of the ORLEN Skylight Accelerator programme calls. Cooperation, in areas such as retail, refining, logistics, water and wastewater management, marketing and energy generation, was ultimately proposed to 23 start-ups selected from among candidates that had responded to the calls.
In 2022 also ANWIL and the Energa Group companies were covered by the ORLEN Skylight Accelerator programme.
Moreover, in April 2022 ORLEN entered into an agreement with Microsoft, commencing cooperation between the Skylight accelerator and Founders Hub 101 programmes. Collaborative links with start-ups in 2022 were also developed on the Czech market as part of the ChemTechNext initiative organised by ORLEN Unipetrol, with applications submitted by more than 50 start-ups and seven of them finally selected for potential joint projects.
During the period, infrastructure of the Research and Development Centre in Płock used for the scale-up of proprietary technologies and preparing them for industrial scale deployment was extended to include four pilot units simulating refining and petrochemical processes (hydrocracking, diesel oil hydrodesulfurisation, reforming and pyrolysis).
An atmospheric and vacuum distillation unit is also under construction, and five more pilot plants simulating industrial processes new to the Company are in the design phase.
The units will be used to test commercial and innovative technology and feedstock solutions. Over the past year, the R&D Centre already launched projects focused on fuel testing, selecting specific lubricant technologies, developing technologies for heavy residue conversion into marketable products, and in-depth research into corrosion prevention.
In 2022, ORLEN was engaged in 120 R&D&I projects, most of them relying on close collaboration with science partners. Last year, the value of this work was in excess of PLN 10 million. The wide extent of ongoing research projects called for a large number of partnerships, which last year included: the University of Warsaw, the Warsaw University of Technology, the Adam Mickiewicz University of Poznań, the Kazimierz Wielki University, the AGH University of Science and Technology of Kraków, the GIG Research Institute, the Institute of Energy and Fuel Processing Technology, the Institute of Heavy Organic Synthesis of Kędzierzyn-Koźle, the Industrial Chemistry Research Institute of Warsaw, the Kazimierz Wielki University of Bydgoszcz, the Oil and Gas Institute – National Research Institute of Kraków, the Air Force Institute of Technology, and the Poznań University of Technology.
The research projects carried out in previous years in partnership with the Gdańsk University of Technology (KORMON*) and the Industrial Chemistry Research Institute (CO_BIO**) were recognised by international expert panels at prestigious invention fairs, where they competed with hundreds of proposals from around the world
*KORMON – a globally innovative system for general corrosion and hydrogen embrittlement monitoring
**CO-BIO – an industrial trial of simultaneous hydrotreatment (co- hydrogenation) of crude oil fractions with vegetable oils successfully carried out on a full scale refinery unit
Examples of effective cooperation between business and science in 2022 included the following projects:
- Innovative 4-CBA hydrogenation catalyst, in which new formulations of innovative catalysts were produced with potentially better catalytic properties than commercial counterparts.
- New Plastics, focused on experiments to obtain new polymers and biopolymers based on the carbon capture and utilisation technology.
- Plastics recycling a research programme aimed at selecting appropriate technologies for ORLEN’s chemical recycling complex.
The flagship programme for systematically building an extensive network of relationships and directly reaching science partners with ORLEN’s research challenges is the NEON (New ORLEN) (New ORLEN) Joint Venture with the National Centre for Research and Development. The programme is run through grant competitions aimed to select unique scientific projects that will receive funding from ORLEN and the National Centre for Research and Development within defined thematic categories.
In the past year, two competition calls were announced in the following categories: Biomass and Industry 4.0, with a total envelope of PLN 43 million. Experience from the first competition showed that the Company’s expectations are highly specialised, and Polish science has not yet come up with satisfactory solutions to address them, which made it impossible to select a winner. The second competition for digital and automated solutions, announced in December 2022, entered the call for proposals phase at the end of January 2023.
ORLEN IN YOUR PORTFOLIO’ programme for retail investors and ORLEN Investing Academy
- As at the end of 2022, the number of the programme participants was 17,500 (an increase of 4,000 over the year), while 280,000 people used the educational section of the orlenwportfelu.pl website (an increase of 60,000 over the year).
- The programme partners are six brokerages, which operate 60% of all individual investment accounts in Poland.
Key activities carried out in 2022:
- 6th edition of the Index Investment Challenge (WSE Foundation)
- Participation in Wallstreet 26, the largest conference for retail investors
- Capital Market Hero Award in the ESG category, Large Companies subcategory, at Wallstreet 26
- Financial Education Day conference at the WSE
- Investing in Practice – 14 new episodes of the series
- Investing in times of uncertainty’ roadshow – Lublin, Kraków
- 4th exam of the ORLEN Investing Academy
- Retail Investors’ Day in Toruń
- Conference on loyalty schemes at the WSE
International Trade Fair for ‘Ideas – Inventions – New Products’ iENA 2022 in Nuremberg(Die internationale Erfindermesse iENA ‘Ideen- Erfindungen- Neuheiten’) – Gold Medal for the KORMON project, Silver Medal for the CO-BIO project
INTARG® International Invention and Innovation Show in Katowice – Grand Prix for the KORMON project, Gold Medal for the CO-BIO project and award for ORLEN, which was recognised as the Most Innovative Entity 2022.
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ORLEN Group 2022 Integrated Report
You can also download the report in PDF format
