JM and bp technology chosen for SAF production plant

Johnson Matthey (JM) has announced that DG Fuels has selected its award-winning Fischer Tropsch (FT) CANS™ technology – co-developed with bp – for DG Fuels’ first sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) plant in St James Parish, Louisiana.
The plant will be the largest deployment of FT CANS to date, seven times larger than any previously announced project using this technology.
DG Fuels is an emerging leader in renewable hydrogen and biogenic based, synthetic SAF and diesel fuel.
The proposed $4 billion (€3.6 billion) DG Fuels plant is planned to produce 600,000 metric tons of SAF per year when fully operational and would be the largest announced SAF production plant using a non-HEFA route.
DG Fuels is planning 10 more SAF production plants across the United States. These would be modelled on the Louisiana plant with JM and bp as the partners of choice for these facilities.
The fuel at the Louisiana plant is expected to be produced from waste biomass.
The plant is expected to start production by 2028. DG Fuels has already secured offtake agreements with major airlines, including multi-year deals with both Air France-KLM and Delta Air Lines. DG Fuels also has a strategic partnership with Airbus to help make SAF available at scale around the world.
Maurits van Tol, chief executive for catalyst technologies at Johnson Matthey, said: “The size of this project is truly exciting and would help take the industry closer to wide-scale use of SAF.”
Noemie Turner, VP technology development & commercialisation at bp, said: “The aviation industry is looking to greatly increase its use of SAF, and we’re proud that DG Fuels has selected our technology to be at the heart of their ambitious plans for large scale SAF production.
“Our FT CANS technology solution brings together decades of science and engineering expertise from bp and JM, and this project shows its competitiveness across the range of production scales and feedstock sources the industry needs. We’re excited to see the relationship with DG Fuels grow, and we look forward to seeing this project come to fruition.”
Christopher J. Chaput, President of DG Fuels, said: “With this technology, we will create a product that is responsibly made and can be immediately substituted for conventional aviation fuel with no engine adaptations. This partnership is a significant boost to help the aviation industry reach its climate goals.”