Essar Oil UK has joined forces with Fulcrum BioEnergy and Essar’s subsidiary company Stanlow Terminals Limited to develop a new facility that will convert non-recyclable household waste into sustainable aviation fuel.
The fuel will be for use by airlines operating at UK airports.
This biorefinery will convert several hundred thousand tonnes of pre-processed waste, which would have otherwise been destined for incineration or landfill, into approximately 100 million litres of low carbon sustainable aviation fuel annually.
The project, which will see an investment of approximately £600m, will use Fulcrum’s proven waste-to-fuel process, which is already being deployed at its facility outside of Reno, Nevada in the US, where operations are due to begin later this year.
Fulcrum will construct, own and operate the plant within Essar’s Stanlow Manufacturing Complex in north-west England, which will be the first Fulcrum plant outside the US.
Essar will assist with the blending and supply the new fuel to airlines, with Stanlow Terminals providing product storage and logistics solutions for the project under a long-term agreement.
The Fulcrum venture will complement Essar’s wider plans to build a green energy industrial cluster at the Stanlow site.
Earlier this year, it announced its participation in production of blue hydrogen under the HyNet project.
The Stanlow project, named Fulcrum NorthPoint, will create 800 direct and indirect jobs during the design, build and commissioning process and over 100 permanent jobs during its operation.
Plans for Fulcrum NorthPoint are expected to be complete at the end of this year and subject to planning consent, will be operational in late 2025.
Essar Oil UK CEO Stein Ivar Bye said: “Stanlow has produced high quality energy products for over 60 years and we intend to remain a key national supplier of energy for the UK into the future. Our sights are firmly set on helping to drive the UK’s decarbonisation strategy.”
Stanlow Terminals CEO Patrick Walters added: “By offering efficient low carbon logistics solutions to develop third party business we support diversification of the traditional refinery business and become a fundamental part of the UK drive to become carbon neutral.”