Strategic Biofuels and Sumitomo Corp. of Americas announce major investment commitment

SCOA will take an anchor position and lead the formation of a Japanese-based investment consortium aimed at funding the majority of development capital needed to carry the project to Financial Investment Decision (FID) and commencement of construction in early 2025. As part of the agreement, SCOA will also acquire rights at FID to participate for a portion of the full project equity requirement. In a decisive strategic shift related to the investment, Strategic Biofuels also unveiled plans to change its primary renewable fuel product to sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). SCOA intends to provide a 20-year offtake for the approximately 640 million gal. of renewable fuels produced as well as all state and federal renewable fuel credits.

"Our goal has always been to bring online a fuels plant contributing to a sustainable future, and we are thrilled to have SCOA as our partner in our LGF endeavour. The shift to SAF is an exciting moment for us and our partners, for the energy landscape in Louisiana and for the greater global energy transition overall," said Dr. Paul Schubert, CEO of Strategic Biofuels. "Although we have a lot of work ahead of us, our team is fully prepared to advance the project to FID and supply SCOA with SAF."

When the LGF project was first announced, Strategic Biofuels garnered recognition for the extraordinarily low carbon footprint of the planned renewable diesel fuel product. The footprint of SAF that will now be produced is expected to be so low that just one gallon of it blended with three gallons of fossil-derived jet fuel will reduce the dependency on carbon in the future.

This investment commitment from SCOA continues the path from 2023, which was a year of rapid project advancement for LGF. Most recently, Strategic Biofuels announced that the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality had issued an Air Permit for the integrated LGF facility, an industry 'first of its kind' in Louisiana and a major step forward for the project. This followed an agreement with SLB, a global technology company, to provide its industry-leading technical services for the company's planned carbon sequestration complex. Earlier in the year, the EPA deemed the project's Class VI permit application for carbon sequestration as 'administratively complete' which included extensive geologic data collected from LGF's 2021 Class V stratigraphic test well.

Read the article online at: https://www.hydrocarbonengineering.com/clean-fuels/08022024/strategic-biofuels-and-sumitomo-corp-of-americas-announce-major-investment-commitment/