Oriental Energy Co. Ltd. has let a contract to Honeywell UOP LLC to license process technology for a grassroots sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) production plant the operator will build in Maoming, Guangdong Province, China.
Alongside licensing of its UOP-Eni SPA codeveloped proprietary Ecofining process, Honeywell UOP' also will provide engineering services, catalysts, proprietary equipment, startup services, and training for the newly proposed plant that will produce 1 million tonnes/year of SAF, the service provider said.
Intended to help Oriental Energy meet rising SAF demand as well as support China’s goals of reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060, the two-unit SAF plant will be built in two phases, with each phase to include construction of one UOP Ecofining unit to enable production of SAF from a feedstock of used cooking oils and animal fats.
Slated to become one of the world’s largest sites for SAF production using cooking oil and animal fat feeds upon startup, the new plant will produce Honeywell Green Jet Fuel, a renewable jet fuel that can be seamlessly blended up to a 50% blend with petroleum-based jet fuel without requiring any changes to aircraft technology and meeting all critical specifications for flight.
Upon reaching full production capacity, Oriental Energy’s use of used cooking oils and animal fats feedstocks—which help to reduce lifecycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by about 80% compared with traditional fuels—will result in a 2.4-million tpy reduction in lifecycle GHGs, according to Honeywell UOP.
“SAF currently represents an important and feasible solution to reduce aviation GHG emissions, and the Oriental Energy SAF project is a [major] step toward emission reduction in the aviation industry,” said Wang Mingxiang, Oriental Energy’s chairman.
“By taking advantage of our existing petrochemical industry chain, we will build a new petrochemical production base to enable the mass production of SAF in China, contributing to [GHG] emission reduction in the aviation sector and China’s [decarbonization] goals,” Mingxiang added.
Further details regarding a timeline for the proposed Maoming SAF plant or contract award were not disclosed.
This latest contract for the Maoming production site follows a December 2021 award by Oriental Energy—one of China’s leading propylene producers and LPG distributors—to W.R. Grace & Co. for licensing of the service provider’s proprietary Unipol polypropylene (PP) process technology to outfit a new 400,000-tpy PP line the operator plans to build at Maoming, according to a Dec. 7, 2021, release from Grace.