Spanish oil firm Repsol and Saudi Arabia's state-controlled Saudi Aramco plan to use Fischer Tropsch technology developed by UK technology firm Johnson Matthey and BP for a synthetic fuels plant in Bilbao, Spain.
The plant will initially have a 2,100 t/yr production capacity of road, marine and aviation fuels from 2024 with plans for further expansion. It will be supplied by a 10MW green hydrogen electrolyser facility due on line in 2024 being developed by Repsol, the Basque regional government's energy agency EVE and Spanish gas grid provider Enagas.
The process involves mixing green hydrogen, made from renewable energy such as solar or wind power, with carbon dioxide to form carbon monoxide, which is then combined with additional hydrogen to form synthetic gas that can then be converted and upgraded into sustainable aviation fuel, renewable diesel and naphtha.
Repsol is also starting up a 2.5MW green hydrogen electrolyser at its 240,000 b/d Petronor refinery in Bilbao this year, along with another 100MW electrolyser in 2025 as part of its Basque Hydrogen Corridor initiative to decarbonise the region. In total it said it will invest €2.549bn ($2.7bn) to install 1.9GW of renewable hydrogen by 2030.
The Petronor refinery started co-processing sustainable aviation fuel made from waste with regular jet fuel last year as part of Repsol's goal to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.
