Competitively Priced, ECA Compliant, Sustainable Biofuel Bunkers Will be a Reality in the Near Future

(Ship & Bunker) Chuck Red, Vice President at US-based biofuels firm Applied Research Associates (ARA), says the current cost of biofuel bunkers is misunderstood, and that competitively priced sustainable products are not only possible, they will be a reality in the near future.

ARA is currently working with the US Navy as part of a polarizing project to get half its energy from renewable sources by 2020, and critics who spoke to Ship & Bunker recently pointed to the latest US Navy trial, where bunkers were priced at around $15,000 per metric tonne (pmt), as evidence that biofuel bunkers will never be viable.

"It's important to understand that this MILSPEC certification testing fuel was produced in a 100 barrel per day (bpd) demonstration plant, not a commercial scale refinery," Red told Ship & Bunker.

To that end, Red says UrbanX Renewables, a licensee of the ARA and Chevron Lummus Global Biofuels ISOCONVERSION technology, is currently in the process of building a 5,000 bpd facility in Southern California, and this will dramatically change the commercial dynamics of the product.

"That's a 50 times scale and at that point, our operating costs will be so much lower we'll be on par with a petroleum refinery's costs per barrel," he said.

"We can process highly contaminated waste oils such as yellow grease and brown grease in addition to tallows, plant oils, microbial oils, algal oils, and more," he said.

"We use no catalyst other than supercritical water in the Catalytic Hydrothermolysis process. We also produce fuels that are virtually indistinguishable from their petroleum counterparts without the use of carbon dating."

The particular product recently on trial was ARA's "ReadiDiesel" CHCD-76 fuel, a 100 percent drop-in replacement for conventional F-76 Naval Distillate.

One thing of interest to commercial bunker buyers is that Red says the product has a "very, very low" sulfur content, meaning it would be compliant with current emissions control area (ECA) regulations. READ MORE