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    Honeywell part of venture building fats-to-renewable Aviation Fuel facility in China

    March 8, 2022
    The process uses used cooking oils and animal fats to produce Honeywell Green Jet Fuel which is then blended with petroleum-based jet fuel at commercial scale. The 50% blend with petroleum-based jet fuel can be used in aircraft without any changes
    Image credit Wikimedia Creative Commons
    China Airlines 62276f845287d

    Honeywell will be part of a venture with Oriental Energy, a propylene producer and LPG distributor in China, to jointly establish a sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) production facility in Maoming, Guangdong Province in China.

    The facility will have an annual production capacity of 1 million tons, helping to meet the rising demand for SAF. It will also contribute to achieving China’s carbon neutrality target by 2060.

    Oriental Energy Chairman Wang Mingxiang said, “SAF currently represents an important and feasible solution to reduce aviation greenhouse gas emissions, and the Oriental Energy SAF project is a significant step toward emission reduction in the aviation industry. We are very pleased to open a new chapter of collaboration with Honeywell. By taking advantage of our existing petrochemical industry chain, we will build a new petrochemical production base to enable the mass production of SAF in China, contributing to greenhouse gas emission reduction in the aviation sector and China’s carbon neutral goals.”

    The project will be built in two phases and involve two production units that will use animal fats and cooking oil as feedstock. It is expected to be one of the world’s largest SAF manufacturing facilities that uses used cooking oil and animal fats.

    The use of such feedstock will help reduce the lifecycle GHG emissions by an estimated 80% compared to tradition fuel--or by 2.4 million tons annually.

    The firms will deploy Honeywell UOP’s Ecofining technology at the facility. The process uses used cooking oils and animal fats to produce Honeywell Green Jet Fuel which is then blended with petroleum-based jet fuel at commercial scale. The 50% blend with petroleum-based jet fuel can be used in aircraft without any changes to aircraft technology.

    “We expect that the Oriental Energy SAF project will enable industrial transformation with this innovative technology, and in return contribute to the growth of the low carbon economy,” said Henry Liu, Vice President and General Manager of Asia Pacific for Honeywell Performance Materials and Technologies.

    A total of 25 Ecofining units have been licensed in eleven countries. These units process 12 types of renewable feedstocks.

    About the Author

    EnergyTech Staff

    Rod Walton is senior editor for EnergyTech.com. He has spent 14 years covering the energy industry as a newspaper and trade journalist.

    Walton formerly was energy writer and business editor at the Tulsa World. Later, he spent six years covering the electricity power sector for Pennwell and Clarion Events. He joined Endeavor and EnergyTech in November 2021.

    He can be reached at [email protected]. 

    EnergyTech is focused on the mission critical and large-scale energy users and their sustainability and resiliency goals. These include the commercial and industrial sectors, as well as the military, universities, data centers and microgrids.

    Many large-scale energy users such as Fortune 500 companies, and mission-critical users such as military bases, universities, healthcare facilities, public safety and data centers, shifting their energy priorities to reach net-zero carbon goals within the coming decades. These include plans for renewable energy power purchase agreements, but also on-site resiliency projects such as microgrids, combined heat and power, rooftop solar, energy storage, digitalization and building efficiency upgrades.