Neste Oil's Engine Laboratory for fuel testing and development is now 40 years old. The Engine Laboratory locates in the Porvoo refinery area and it has ensured top quality and developed increasingly better fuels. The research work of the Engine Laboratory is unique in many respects. These kinds of tests are not performed by anyone else under Finland's cold conditions.
"Car and engine testing in the Engine Laboratory has been indispensable when Neste Oil has developed new products. The company has been a pioneer, for instance, in developing unleaded and sulfur-free fuel and decreasing exhaust emissions. The Engine Laboratory has also played an important role in the development of the renewable NEXBTL diesel. One of the most important duties of the laboratory is to ensure that the product truly works in the final use," says Lars Peter Lindfors, Senior Vice President in Technology in Neste Oil.
"The quality of fuel is easy to take for granted, but in reality it is not a trivial matter. Poor-quality diesel has stopped tens of thousands of motorists on roadsides across the world during the past few years. At the end of 2014, such problems were encountered in Sweden, for instance. When using Neste Oil's diesel, such problems do not appear," says Seppo Mikkonen, R&D Fellow at Neste Oil.