From a ten-man business to a medium-sized company and world market leader
In 1972, Kurt Thomas Pörner – brother of today’s managing director Andreas Pörner – founded the Technical Office Pörner with focus on industrial piping. One of the first company projects was the detail engineering of the Congo refinery on behalf of VOEST. Only twelve employees carried out the entire project. Over the following years, Pörner evolved from piping specialist to a universal engineering company. In 1978, the company took a significant step: Pörner realized the first Biturox® bitumen plant at Mobil Wörth in Germany and has focused on this key niche technology since then. Bitumen is the most important building material for road construction worldwide. With the help of the Pörner Biturox® technology, it is possible to obtain high-quality road bitumen from less suitable refinery residues. Today, with more than 60 licenses granted, Pörner is the world market leader in the construction of bitumen plants using this technology.
Growing demands in plant engineering
To meet the increasing demands in both industry and society, the Pörner Group established the Plant Engineering 4.0 concept several years ago: By introducing automated processes and intelligent systems with the lowest possible consumption of operating resources and energy while using modern environmental technologies, the company plans and implements highly productive and energy-efficient process plants worldwide. “Process plant engineering is the supreme discipline of engineering. Every large-scale plant engineering project is unique and is highly complex in process engineering and implementation,” says Peter Schlossnikel, Managing Director of Pörner.
The social changes shifting from pure consumption towards a balanced resource use also made the industry rethink, which is responsible for large CO2 emissions worldwide. “Since the 2000s we, at Pörner, increasingly focus on the development of new technologies such as bio-silicates and power-to-X technologies as well as environmentally compatible and energy-efficient processes for resource and emission reduction. Among other things, we established the Pörner Water competence center. Our water experts support all branches of industry in minimizing the energy and water consumption and emissions of their process plants,” adds Schlossnikel.
The latest major project is the construction of the world’s first industrial Pörner bio-silicate plant in Thailand. The self-developed sustainable technology enables the production of high-purity bio-silicates based on rice hull ash, which is generated CO2 neutrally in biomass power plants and will support the global silicate industry in decarbonizing its products such as “green tires”, detergents, cosmetics, building products or catalysts.
A positive view of the future
Pörner aims for a further healthy growth and sees great potential particularly in Germany. “With our subsidiary EDL Anlagenbau in Leipzig, we have had an experienced and capable team on board for many years. In the current overall economic transformation process, in which topics such as digitalization, climate protection, circular economy or the use of renewable energies play an important role, Pörner and EDL offer new process solutions for hydrogen, power-to-X and more,” shares Andreas Pörner, Managing Director of Pörner.
As a developer and supplier of sustainable technologies and plants, plant engineering plays a central key role. “We are aware of the historic opportunity. With strong commitment and an enthusiastic team, we have always taken on new challenges and grown steadily. At the same time, Pörner remains the medium-sized company with heart that it has been from the very beginning,” says Andreas Pörner.
