Total eyes first biojet output from Grandpuits in 2024

Total is planning to produce up to 170,000 t/yr of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) — also known as biojet — at its Grandpuits refinery near Paris once it has converted the facility into a biorefinery. The supplies will help meet growing demand as European countries legislate to reduce emissions in the aviation sector.

Earlier today Total announced plans to convert Grandpuits into a 400,000 t/yr biorefinery by 2024. Grandpuits will be the first biorefinery to produce biojet in France. Total's focus on biojet follows earlier calls by the French government to increase the country's SAF blending target to 2pc by 2025, 5pc by 2030 and 50pc by in 2050. Grandpuits currently produces 500,000 t/yr of fossil jet fuel, although the refinery has only been running at 70pc capacity because of long-standing problems with a pipeline that delivers around 90pc of its feedstock.

"The main lever to decarbonise the aviation sector is to blend biojet. And Grandpuits is well placed because it serves the Paris airports," Total's refining and chemicals president Bernard Pinatel said today.

The biorefinery will also produce 120,000 t/yr of hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO) — also known as renewable diesel — and 50,000 t/yr of green naphtha that will be used to make bioplastics. "We will produce HVO like in La Mede, but we want to be able to output biojet in Grandpuits so the process will be different," Pinatel said.

Total will use the hydrotreated esters and fatty acids (HEFA) technology in its new biorefinery. Feedstock for Grandpuits will comprise around 70pc of animal fats (tallow) and used cooking oil (UCO), supplemented with around 30pc of vegetable oils such as rapeseed oil (RSO) but excluding palm oil. As well as the biorefinery, the Grandpuits conversion will include a bioplastics plant and a plastics recycling plant. It is expected to cost more than €500mn ($574mn) overall, but Total declined to break down the spending. France's CGT union said investment on the biorefinery will amount to €238mn.

Total has already converted its 160,000 b/d La Mede refinery into a 500,000 t/yr HVO plant for an initial investment of €275mn. The firm said last year that La Mede has the capacity to produce up to 100,000 t/yr of SAF but it has so far focused on road fuels production. "La Mede is dedicated to road fuels, we process mostly vegetable oils there, we are limited in our capacity to process waste feedstocks," Pinatel said.

Total is the latest European biofuels producer eyeing biojet production. An EU proposal to introduce a 1-2pc EU-wide blending quota for SAF — possibly from 2021 — has resulted in an increase in biojet production across Europe. UK company Velocys is developing Europe's first waste-to-SAF facility, while Netherlands-based biojet producer SkyNRG is developing a 100,000 t/yr aviation fuel plant at Delfzijl, and Finland's St1 is set to commission a new 200,000 t/yr biorefinery in Gothenburg producing HVO and biojet at the end of 2021.

Finnish firm Neste is currently the largest SAF producer in Europe, with output of 100,000 t/yr of biojet at its Porvoo refinery. The company plans to produce 1mn t/yr at a refinery in Singapore, which is under construction, from 2022, and 450,000 t/yr at a proposed facility in Rotterdam from 2023.

SAF benefits from a 1.2x multiplier towards countries' blending targets under the EU's recast Renewable Energy Directive set to come into effect next year. Increased availability of biojet in Europe could reduce prices, which are currently significantly higher than fossil jet fuel values. Argus assessed UCO-based SAF (HEFA-SPK) at $2,121.47/t at the end of last week, a $1,804.22/t premium to conventional jet fuel as of 23 September.

By Giulia Squadrin and Caroline Varin