SG Preston and IHI to build several biofuels plants in North America

In the US, Philadelphia-based bioenergy company SG Preston and IHI E&C – a Houston-based engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) subsidiary of IHI Corporation – have entered into an agreement to develop and construct a series of commercial volume biofuel plants.

The plants, to be constructed in Midwest US and Canada, will use commercial scale technologies for the production of renewable diesel and jet fuel targeting US and global industries seeking a volume-based, competitively priced solution to their environmental sustainability mandates.

‘The need to drive thought leadership and momentum toward tangible solutions in the US alternative energy market has become a strategic imperative that we intend to lead in alliance with global blue chip partners in engineering and construction, technology, and manufacturing,’ says R. Delbert LeTang, SG Preston president and CEO. 

IHI E&C will serve as turnkey EPC to SG Preston’s biofuels initiative, delivering ‘lump sum’, fixed price engineering and construction, a first in the renewable diesel and jet fuels landscape at commercial scale.

SG Preston will deploy its biofuels strategy initially at five plants to be located at South Point and Van Wert in Ohio, Logansport in Indiana, and two additional, to-be-announced sites, one in Michigan and one in Ontario, Canada.

Each facility will have an initial capacity to produce 120 million gallons of renewable diesel and jet fuel annually and a positive economic impact on the local community, in both the near term during construction of the facilities and longer term throughout their operation.  

Social and market forces, including tighter regulation of carbon-emitting industries, worldwide demand for growth in clean fuels, and a growing need to reduce CO₂ emissions and the amount of waste produced, have combined to drive the SG Preston initiative. 

‘We are combining existing technology and infrastructure in new ways, and on a larger scale than ever before to help global industry meet its demand for more environmentally friendly energy and fuels,’ says Dwayne Brown, SG Preston senior vice president of strategic initiatives.

IHI E&C will steward and guide SG Preston’s multi-facility programme to create and standardise replication benefits in engineering and design targeted at delivering volume quantities of advanced renewable diesel and jet fuel to global market customers in an abbreviated timeframe.