Metsä Group to build a commercial CO₂ capture plant in Rauma
Metsä Group has launched a preliminary planning project for the first commercial biogenic carbon dioxide capture plant. As part of the plant’s financing plan, the company has submitted an application to a reverse auction organised by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment, which awards investment grants to clean transition projects.
The potential facility would be located adjacent to Metsä Group’s Rauma pulp mill, and its nominal capacity would be approximately 100,000 tons of captured wood-based carbon dioxide per year. The carbon dioxide would be captured from the mill’s flue gases. This would be a commercial production facility, and its planned capacity would be the first step toward a larger scale: at Metsä Group, the long-term carbon dioxide capture potential from wood is several million tons per year. Carbon dioxide can be used as a raw material in the chemical and fuel industries, among others, and can replace the use of fossil raw materials.
The plant’s environmental permit application was submitted in December 2025, and the authorities’ permit decision is expected to be finalized this year. If 100,000 tons of wood-based carbon dioxide were used annually in the fuel value chain, it would prevent the annual fossil carbon dioxide emissions of nearly 30,000 passenger cars.
– At Metsä Group, the utilization of wood-based carbon dioxide has been under development for several years. We are examining the possibility primarily from the perspective of carbon dioxide serving as a raw material for new products. “We are very pleased that the first supply agreements with customers have now been signed,” says Niklas von Weymarn, CEO of Metsä Group’s innovation company Metsä Spring.
“The emergence of entirely new value chains and markets often requires public support in the early stages. This is a one-time investment grant that can accelerate the commercialization of the technology and create significant new industrial activity in Finland,” von Weymarn notes.
The grant applied for may not exceed 30 percent of the total investment. A decision on the investment in the Rauma capture plant could be made as early as the first half of 2027, and it requires a positive grant decision, an environmental permit, the completion of preliminary planning, and certainty regarding customer demand.
– Capturing wood-based carbon dioxide would support Metsä Group’s strategy to strengthen its fossil-free business and develop new, competitive products. At the same time, it would improve our competitiveness in pulp production, says Ismo Nousiainen, CEO of Metsä Fibre.
Metsä Group will pilot carbon dioxide capture technology using flue gas from the Rauma pulp mill in 2025 in collaboration with technology company Andritz. The pilot demonstrated that the technology is sufficiently mature for controlled upscaling.
The key uncertainty surrounding the project relates to market development, as industrial value chains utilizing wood-based carbon dioxide are still being established. The emergence of new markets requires simultaneous investment decisions from multiple players. A potential investment by Metsä Group could help accelerate the development of the entire new value chain.
