USA BioEnergy to submit $1.63bn loan application with US DOE

USA BioEnergy has announced that its Texas Renewable Fuels has been invited by the US Department of Energy (DOE) Loan Programs Office (LPO) to submit a Part II application for a proposed $1.63bn loan guarantee under the Title XVII Innovative Clean Energy Loan Guarantee Program.

“Provided that our application is approved, we plan to combine it with tax-exempt bonds through our lead underwriter, Citigroup, and our co-underwriter, Stifel. The appeal of the loan guarantee program funding is that it offers the lowest cost of capital, which becomes monumentally important when funding infrastructure-sized projects,” said Nick Andrews, CEO, USA BioEnergy.

“Getting invited to Phase II is no small undertaking as the LPO does not extend invitations lightly and believes the company and the project have the potential to join the LPO portfolio.”

Under the Title 17 Clean Energy Financing Program, LPO can finance projects in the US that support clean energy deployment and energy infrastructure reinvestment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution.

Title 17 was created by the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and has since been amended, most recently by the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022.

This announcement comes on the heels of USA BioEnergy’s 20-year offtake agreement with Southwest Airlines for sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). Under the agreement, Southwest may purchase up to 680m gallons of neat SAF from USA BioEnergy.

The company announced plans to setup the Texas Renewable Fuels in 2022 to convert 1m green tons of wood waste into 34m gallons of transportation fuel including SAF, renewable diesel and renewable naphtha annually.

Based in Scottsdale, Arizona, USA BioEnergy is planning to consecutively develop a series of 12 advanced biorefineries to create SAF, renewable diesel, and renewable naphtha from via gasification, Fischer-Tropsch, and hydrocarbon upgrading technologies.