St. Bernard Biorefinery : Eni Sustainable Mobility, PBF Energy form JV

Eni Sustainable Mobility and PBF Energy have joined forces for the St. Bernard Biorefinery an under-construction biorefinery in Louisiana, which will enable the former to enter into the US biofuels market.

The St. Bernard Biorefinery will be a 50-50 joint venture (JV) and is co-located with PBF Energy’s Chalmette Refinery in Louisiana.

The biorefinery will operate as an independent entity and manufacture hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO) diesel. It will have a production capacity of 306 million gallons annually.

With full pre-treatment capabilities, the St. Bernard Biorefinery project is currently anticipated to process approximately 1.1 million tonnes of raw materials per year.

It is expected to benefit from the experience and expertise of Eni Sustainable Mobility and PBF Energy, and will leverage the Ecofining process, developed by the former in partnership with Honeywell UOP.

Eni Sustainable Mobility, PBF Energy form joint venture for the St. Bernard Biorefinery in Louisiana. Photo courtesy of trolvag/Wiki

Stefano Ballista — Eni Sustainable Mobility CEO said: “This is a further step for Eni Sustainable Mobility to expand its biorefining capacity, that today is over 1 million tonnes/year and it is planned to grow in the upcoming years.

“Biofuels are part of Eni strategy to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 through the reduction of the emissions generated during the entire products life cycle.”

The St. Bernard renewables biorefinery will receive an investment of $835 million and a milestone payment of up to $50 million from Eni Sustainable Mobility.

PBF Energy will continue to execute and operate the biorefinery project upon the completion of the construction.

Matthew Lucey — PBF Energy President said: “The project will utilize existing processing infrastructure and diverse inbound and outbound logistics and is ideally situated to support growing demand for low-carbon fuels.

“Our partnership with Eni signals a major milestone for PBF and demonstrates our commitment to contributing diversified sources of energy to the global mix while lowering the carbon intensity of our operations and the products we manufacture.”

The St. Bernard Biorefinery is aimed to go live in the first half of this year.

Eni Sustainable Mobility said that it is also studying the possible construction of two new biorefineries in Italy and Malaysia.