Advanced BioFuels USA

by Liz Gyekye (BioMarket Insights)  “In use, bio LPG is identical to conventional LPG and therefore has the benefit of being able to be blended and used by all existing appliances.”

123 years. That is how long family-owned multinational organisation SHV Energy has been established for. The Netherlands-headquartered company has recently reiterated its strong corporate commitment to its “bold ambition” that 100% of its energy products will be renewably sourced by 2040. The company specialises in providing its customers with a downstream distribution product called liquid petroleum gas (LPG).

Here, in a special joint ‘5 Minutes With.. interview’, Liz Gyekye, senior content manager for Bio-Based World News, catches up with SHV Energy CEO Bram Gräber and SHV Energy Global Innovation Director Rebecca Groen.

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SHV Energy is a leading supplier of LPG around the world and is also an investor in renewable energy solutions. We provide energy, like LPG and liquified natural gas (LNG), to customers who are not connected to a gas grid. This is an extensive business, which makes around €7bn worth of revenue across the globe. And, we have 16,000 employees that make this happen for our customers. LPG is used for applications like heating, which includes domestic and industrial heating, cooking and transport.

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First, we help customers to make the switch from high density fossils like oil and coal to low-carbon fossil fuels like LPG. Second, in 2018, we were the first in the industry to introduce bio LPG to Europe. This bio LPG is made from non-fossil fuel sources, mainly sourced from waste products from the renewable diesel production process (the HVO or hydrotreated vegetable oil process). In use, bio LPG is identical to conventional LPG and therefore has the benefit of being able to be blended and used by all existing appliances. Third, we also invest in renewables. For instance, we have a biomass company called Balcas based in Ireland and Great Britain.

We offer our bio LPG in several (eight) European markets. We have teamed up with our partner Neste Oil @NesteGlobal, a Finnish biofuels specialist, to produce this bio LPG at its Rotterdam refinery.

RG: There are great environmental advantages in switching away from heating oil to bio LPG. In the UK, 75% of off-gas grid customers use heating oil. Switching from heating oil to bio LPG creates a significant carbon footprint saving and helps with air quality improvements. If you switch from heating oil to bio LPG, you get down to an incredible minus 80% in terms of carbon footprint savings. That’s offering people an opportunity to decarbonise with little additional investment required. In many older, remote properties, you can’t really use solar panels and heat pumps and be certain you can have the same level of comfort as you would have had with the existing infrastructure. In contrast, with bio LPG you can – and at a much lower cost than you would have if you had gone for solar not to mention that you can create less of an inconvenience for the customer. In addition to this, it offers a real opportunity for our customers who live off grid.

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We are recycling waste and using it as a clean energy source. Yes, we introduced this product last April and we are distributing it across Europe. Demand is far higher than anybody would have expected. Both domestic and industrial customers highly appreciate it. We do not have the dilemma of finding more customers. Instead, we have the dilemma of making sure that we have enough supply.

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This programme looks at other ways of converting biomass waste and municipal waste, and potential feedstocks like seaweed and algae into bio LPG and bio LNG. The main aim for us is to help us continue to expand the amount of bio products that we can offer to our customers. We are committed to doing this and have increased our activities in this area because we have an ambition to source 100% of our energy products from renewable resources by 2040.

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LG: What’s been the biggest challenge in growing SHV?

RG: It’s basically getting the awareness out there that bio LPG is relatively easy to make and is a very effective drop-in solution. Essentially, more people should be going out there and making this for us. It’s basically finding the supply. That is what we are working hard on at the moment. We are looking for new ways to get increasing large quantities so that we can continue to help our customers to decarbonise.

BG: The dilemma that we have is that the traditional suppliers of LPG, like oil companies, have not got dedicated infrastructure towards creating biofuels, including bio LPG. So, you almost have to be either a new player or put a completely separate infrastructure in place from your existing one. New infrastructure has to be developed to make this possible for large-scale production.

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The biorefinery world is expanding and this is helped by the drive to use renewable fuels for transport on roads, air, and sea. Our role is to get the awareness out there, so when you are producing those products you also co-produce bio LPG. We will happily take this product so that we can use it for our customers who will mainly use it to help them to decarbonise their heating requirements in Europe and in other parts of the world.

LG: Who is mainly using this product?

BG: The lion share is taken by our industrial customers and to a certain extent our domestic customers.   READ MORE