Pathway Energy announces 30m gallon SAF facility on US Gulf Coast
Houston-based carbon-negative fuel project developer Pathway Energy, wholly-owned subsidiary of Nexus Holdings, announced plans to develop commercial-scale facility in Port Arthur, Texas to produce 30m gallons of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF).
“Today we are happy to debut with the best technology and industrial partners in the industry on a market opportunity with global significance,” said Steve Roberts, chief executive officer at Pathway Energy.
“With the ultra negative carbon intensity achieved through our process, Pathway Energy is poised to lead a global market for ultra negative fuels, driving large scale emission reductions across the aviation sector.”
The announcement came in tandem with their agreement with Drax Global on the feedstock partnership. Under the agreement, Drax will supply 1m tonnes of wood pellets to Pathway for the project.
The company already has experience in waste and biomass conversion processes and technologies, including: biomass power generation, biomass gasification, Fischer-Tropsch, and complex biorefinery and industrial processes.
Pathway has partnered with multinational firms including Sumitomo SHI FW, who will supply power production and gasification process technology packages for the project.
“Currently the market for SAF only has options for lower carbon fuels, and while these fuels are effective in abatement of emissions, they require substantial production volumes. We saw the opportunity to provide carriers a pathway to completely decarbonize their flights with our net zero blended fuel,” said Joshua Pearson, chief technology officer at Pathway.
“This is a new type of SAF production that is 7-9x more carbon negative than the SAF on the market today and represents the most sustainable, cost efficient and derisked path to decarbonize global aviation, long term.”
The project will convert sustainably-sourced wood pellets through biomass power, gasification and syngas conversion technologies into SAF.
Pathway said that its decision to use wood pellet feedstock from Drax Global and proven technologies from Sumitomo SHI FW derisks feed system failures and optimises gasification performance.
Combining these commercial technologies with carbon capture and storage technology, the Port Arthur facility is expected to remove more than 1.9m tons of CO2 annually while producing 30m gallons of carbon-negative SAF.