DG Fuels LLC, Washington, DC, has let a contract to Johnson Matthey (JM) and bp PLC to license their jointly developed Fischer Tropsch (FT) CANS technology for the operator’s sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) production complex under development on a 3,000-acre site along the west bank of the Mississippi River in St. James Parish, La. (OGJ Online, Dec. 7, 2023).
Awarded in late-March 2024, the contract covers licensing of the FT CANS technology for DG Fuels’ proposed St. James Parish SAF plant—the first of 11 proposed for the US—that would process locally sourced agricultural and timber biowaste feedstocks to produce 600,000 tonnes/year (tpy; about 13,000 b/d) of SAF, JM said on Apr. 10.
Alongside technology licensing for the St. James Parish plant, the agreement also provides for potential use of the FT CANS technology in DG Fuels’ remaining 10 US-based plants, all of which would be modeled on the Louisiana plant, the service provider said.
If approved, the St. James Parish plant’s production of SAF would subsequently be blended up to 50% with fossil-based kerosine to create enough drop-in SAF to power more than 30,000 transatlantic commercial flights annually, helping to reduce the aviation industry’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by about 1.65 million tpy, according to JM and DG Fuels.
DG Fuels said it expects a front-end engineering design (FEED) study on the St. James Parish complex to be completed in late-summer 2024, with final investment decision (FID) on the project likely due in 2025.
Based on an estimated construction and commissioning period of between 3-4 years, the proposed $4-billion St. James Parish project would be completed sometime in 2028, according to the operator.
Aside from ongoing discussion with partners and state regulators in Maine for establishing what would become the operator’s second US SAF biofuels complex, DG Fuels has yet to reveal anticipated locations of its future US SAF projects (OGJ Online, Nov. 16, 2023).
