Petrixo to build biojet fuel refinery in UAE using UOP technology

The Honeywell company UOP LLC announced this month that its green fuels process technology has been selected by Dubai-based Petrixo Oil & Gas to produce biojet fuel and renewable diesel at a new refinery to be built in Fujairah, United Arab Emirates.

Petrixo will use the UOP technology to process around 500,000 metric tons per year of renewable feedstocks into biojet fuel and renewable diesel, trademarked Honeywell Green Jet Fuel and Honeywell Green Diesel. The process technology is capable of processing a variety of renewable feedstocks. It is designed to provide flexibility to adjust the feedstock mix, which could include next-generation materials such as oils from algae and halophytes as they become commercially available, depending on cost and availability.

Petrixo announced earlier this year that it will invest $800 million to build the new production facility designed to produce 1 million tons per year of biojet and renewable diesel products. Honeywell says it will be the first commercial-scale biojet fuel production facility outside of North America.

“Petrixo believes that new energy solutions are immensely important for scalable, environmental and renewable solutions,” said Eid Al Olayyan, CEO of Petrixo Oil & Gas. “UOP's green fuels technologies are proven refining solutions that produce high-quality products compatible with petroleum-based fuels.”

 “UOP's renewable process technologies produce real fuels … that fit seamlessly into existing fuel supply chains,” said Veronica May, vice president and general manager of UOP's renewable energy and chemicals business unit. “The renewable fuels produced by our technology also offer lower greenhouse gas emissions relative to traditional petroleum-based fuels.”

Blended up to 50 percent with conventional jet fuel, Honeywell Green Jet Fuel can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 65 to 85 percent compared with petroleum-based fuels.

Honeywell's UOP Renewable Jet Fuel Process technology was developed in 2007 under a contract from the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to produce renewable military jet fuel for the U.S. military. The process technology is fully compatible with existing hydroprocessing technology commonly used in today's refineries to produce transportation fuels.

The process technology also produces Honeywell Green Diesel, a drop-in replacement for traditional diesel. The fuel offers improved performance over petroleum-based diesel, including a higher cetane value compared with the cetane range of 40 to 60 found in available diesel at the pump.

UOP process technology is currently being used by Diamond Green Diesel to produce green diesel at a commercial-scale facility in Norco, La.

Honeywell's UOP serves as a founding member of the Sustainable Bioenergy Research Consortium with Boeing, Etihad Airways, and the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology in Abu Dhabi. SBRC focuses on testing the use of desert plants grown with seawater to support biofuel crop production in arid countries, such as the UAE.

Petrixo is part of Petrixo Group, which is active in trading crude oil, oil products and petrochemicals, with an interest in downstream energy projects and logistics operations in the Baltic States, the Russian Federation, CIS and the Middle East. The new Fujairah refinery will occupy 460,000 square meters in the Fujairah free zone and the Port of Fujairah.