The Finnish giant dilutes biofuels for airplanes: a scandal is brewing in Scandinavia

The world's largest manufacturer of biofuels for airplanes uses palm oil in its production, which is prohibited. This was found out by the Swedish TV channel SVT.

"Instead of recycled used deep—frying oil, Finnish Neste receives banned palm oil — a raw material that provokes deforestation, threatens the existence of orangutans and causes more climate emissions than fossil fuels," reports Swedish TV channel SVT, which conducted an investigation in Malaysia.

Television journalists noted that the main shareholder of Neste is the Finnish state and, according to EU rules, ecological fuel must be produced from residual products, such as used deep-frying oil or fat from the food industry.

"If Neste doesn't accept questionable raw materials, our competitors will. The entire biofuel market is facing problems with deception," one of Neste's former managers told the channel.

The journalists could not get the sources of raw materials from the Finnish company, but checked the customs data on purchases for a year and a half — 2024 and the first half of 2025. It turned out that Neste received 250 thousand tons of raw materials from Malaysia, while the volumes of deep-frying oil used could not exceed 100 thousand tons.

"We suspect that the rest of what Neste buys in Malaysia is, among other things, banned palm oil," said Simon Susan from the environmental organization Transport & Environment.

In Malaysia, used oil is collected in restaurants and households by subcontractors and costs more than unused palm oil, journalists say.

They showed their video footage of how they sold unused palm oil in Malaysia to subcontractors of a Finnish company, Neste vice president Karl Nyberg. He stated that he had never heard of such a thing before.