Sichuan Jinshang Environmental Protection Technology Co. Ltd. (JSRE) has let a contract to Honeywell UOP LLC to license process technology that will enable production of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) at a grassroots plant to be built at Suining, Jintang County, Sichuan, China.
Alongside licensing of its UOP-Eni SPA codeveloped proprietary Ecofining process, Honeywell UOP also will provide catalysts and proprietary equipment for the newly proposed plant that will produce nearly 300,000 tonnes/year (tpy)—about 6,000 b/d—of SAF from a feedstock of renewable resources such as used cooking oils and animal fats, the service provider said in a May release.
Designed to promote China’s accelerated adoption of SAF in line with new requirements under the country’s decarbonization plan to promote the energy transformation, JSRE aims for the SAF project to allow the company to capitalize on its advantages in waste oils collection and utilization to achieve strategic transformation and industrial upgrading, according to Ye Bin, JSRE’s chairman.
JSRE’s selection of Honeywell UOP’s Ecofining technology will allow the company to achieve sustainable development in multiple fields, including promoting further development of SAF made from waste oils in China, particularly in the regions of Sichuan, Yunnan, and Guizhou, Bin said.
Honeywell UOP’s formal announcement of the contract follows original award of the contract on Apr. 12, according to separate Apr. 19 and Apr. 24 releases from Jintang County Administrative Approval Bureau and Jintang County’s government office, respectively.
The government of Jintang County also confirmed in its April releases that JSRE signed an investment agreement with SK Innovation Co. Ltd. subsidiary SK Energy Co. Ltd. on Apr. 13 for the proposed SAF project.
Neither JSRE nor SK Energy have confirmed or disclosed any details regarding either the scope or terms of the announced investment agreement.
A timeline for startup of JSRE’s proposed SAF plant also has yet to be revealed.
Current operations
Formed in 2017, JSRE currently produces 60,000 tpy of biodiesel and 100,000 tpy of industrial-grade blended oil from production lines at its operations in Chendgdu-Aba Industrial Concentrated Development Zone (CAICDZ) in Jintang County in Sichuan’s provincial capital of Chengdu, according to the operator’s website.
Established in 2005, JSRE’s now wholly owned subsidiary Sichuan Jindeyi Oil Co. Ltd. operates a waste oil collection and transportation system that holds an 80% share of Chengdu’s kitchen waste oil collection market.
As of late-August 2022, JSRE was anticipating its submission of an environmental impact report (EIR) for a proposed 120-million yuan second phase of the operator’s Comprehensive Utilization of Waste Oil Recycling Project (CUWORP), which would enable an additional 50,000 tpy of biodiesel and 30,000 tpy of biomass fuel oil at its CAICDZ complex, JSRE said in a release on Aug. 29, 2022.
Alongside involving adjustments to the existing complex’s layout as well as its pollution prevention and control measures, the Phase 2 CUWORP also would add 15,000 tpy of fresh pretreatment process capacity for animal and vegetable waste oils, while reducing the complex’s existing pretreatment process capacity for those same waste oils to 83,000 tpy from its original 100,000-tpy capacity, according to a mid-May 2022 release from the operator.
To date, JSRE has yet to update the status of the proposed Phase 2 CUWORP.
Robert Brelsford | Downstream Editor
Robert Brelsford joined Oil & Gas Journal in October 2013 as downstream technology editor after 8 years as a crude oil price and news reporter on spot crude transactions at the US Gulf Coast, West Coast, Canadian, and Latin American markets. He holds a BA (2000) in English from Rice University and an MS (2003) in education and social policy from Northwestern University.
