UPDATE 1-APPEC-Austria's OMV starts up biofuels plant at Schwechat refinery

(Adds details from paragraph 2)

By Muyu Xu and Trixie Yap

SINGAPORE, Sept 5 (Reuters) - Austria's OMV started up a new biofuels plant at its Schwechat refinery two weeks ago, a company executive said at an energy industry conference in Singapore on Tuesday.

The plant can produce around 160,000 metric tons per year (tpy) of sustainable diesel components from bio-oils, said Michael Spitzbart, senior vice president of OMV's refining business.

The company also "plans to go into sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), renewables, hydrogen and electrolysis," Spitzbart told Reuters on the sidelines of the APPEC conference.

"We already produce SAF ... (for) our clients such as Lufthansa and Austrian Airlines. We have also signed MoU with other clients including Ryanair," he said.

OMV has refineries in southern Germany and Romania, as well as in Austria.

The company also plans to bring online a 16,000-tpy bio-oil project in the fourth quarter this year using a "ReOil" technology that converts plastics into synthetic feedstock for producing petrochemicals.

OMV expects to launch another 200,000-tpy plastics conversion project in 2027 at its Schwechat refinery, Spitzbart said. (Reporting by Trixie Yap and Muyu Xu; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman and Tom Hogue)