April 4, 2018 – Paul Morden, Sarnia Observer – Benefuel, a company with offices in Ottawa and Texas, is working to build biodiesel refinery in Sarnia expected to begin operating in 2020 with more than 40 workers.
Sarnia-based Bioindustrial Innovation Canada, a government-funded agency working to help new sustainable technologies reach the market, said Tuesday it has invested in Benefuel to allow it to complete engineering needed as a final step before building a plant in Sarnia.
“We recognize the need for low carbon transportation fuels and Benefuel provides an important step forward to meet these goals,” Sandy Marshall, executive director of Bioindustrial Innovation Canada, said in a news release.
Rob Tripp, chief executive officer of Benefuel, said the company is planning to build a plant in Sarnia with an annual capacity of 75-million litres.
“We’re looking at leaving room to double the capacity down the road,” he added.
Tripp said the company is still working through estimates for the cost of the Sarnia plant. He added, “We typically don’t disclose financial information.”
Benefuel uses a unique refining technology to make biodiesel, Tripp said.
“It is capable of processing all of the hard-to-process waste oils that are high in free fatty acids,” he said.
The target feedstock for the Sarnia plant will be used cooking oil and distiller’s corn oil, which is a byproduct of ethanol refining.
“We’ve spent a lot of our time scaling up our technology in Nebraska with Flint Hills Resources,” Tripp said.
“That large-scale demonstration plant has been completed and is in operation now, and has given us a lot of good information for deploying the technology at a commercial scale.”
Suncor Energy, one of Benefuel’s investors, has an ethanol plant in nearby St. Clair Township.
That, along with the community’s industrial infrastructure, services, contractors and module fabricators, made Sarnia a good location for Benefuel, he said.
Tripp added the company is also looking ahead at a clean fuel standard proposed in Canada.
“Given that there’s a lack of low-carbon supply, we felt that our technology and ability to process the low-carbon waste feedstocks was a good fit for the area.”
The Sarnia plant will be the first facility Benefuel owns and its modular design “really sets the foundation for how we grow the company,” Tripp said.
He said Benefuel is looking at a few locations for its plant in Sarnia, including the Arlanxeo site where BioAmber is located and Sacramento-based Origin Materials is planning to build a production site.
Bioindustrial Innovation Canada said it has been working with Benefuel for a number of years.
“Sandy and his group are looking to develop renewable-based refining options in Sarnia, and I think we fit very well in the profile of companies they’re seeking to attract,” Tripp said.
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