Investancia Will Plant 50 Million Trees after Reaching a Historic Agreement with ECB Group

(Investancia/EIN Newswire) Pongamia Trees will produce 300,000 tonnes of sustainable second generation feedstock every year by 2030 in boost for global green transport initiatives -- - Leading agroforestry and research company Investancia today signed a 30-year offtake deal with ECB Group that will see 300,000 tonnes of ‘reforestation oil’ from pongamia oil produced annually by 2030. The deal represents a significant step forward in the global green transport transition.

The Investancia tree propagation and R&D centre, located near Carmelo Peralta, Alto Paraguay, is the world’s largest dedicated elite pongamia tree production site. Its current annual production capacity of 1 million trees will scale over the next 10 years to a total of 50 million trees, planted across 125,000 hectares.

A report by MEO Carbon Solutions (part of ISCC) found that pongamia oil has one of the lowest carbon intensity levels of all available feedstocks and is three times less carbon intensive than soybean oil.

“We are extremely proud to team-up with the strategic investment of ECB to establish the first major HVO refinery in the southern hemisphere.” said Marcel van Heesewijk, CEO & Founder of Investancia.

“During the last year we were able to jointly develop plans to put South America, and more specifically Paraguay on the map as the leading region for next generation green fuels using feedstock generated from our certified reforestation activities in the Paraguayan Chaco. Our combined efforts have immediate and multiple impacts on climate change”

The pongamia oil will be refined by the ECB Group at their new 800,000 MT state-of-the-art Omega Green HVO/SAF refinery, located in Villeta, Paraguay near Asuncion. The ECB Group Paraguay and Shell Trading (US) Company have signed a multi-year contract that will provide more than 500 million litres of renewable diesel and renewable jet fuel per year to Shell, one of the world’s largest energy companies. The contract is expected to run from 2024-2029, totalling 2.5 billion litres of HVO/SPK. The ECB Group also announced the execution of a contract with bp, the global integrated energy company with a broad participation across the world's energy supply chain, to sell in excess of a billion litres of biodistillate between 2024-2029.

Investancia started developing its feedstock from reforestation in 2014, with early genetics development support from US-based partner TERVIVA. Investancia’s pongamia oil, refined for hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO), is low carbon, low indirect land use change (ILUC) and complies with Europe’s Renewable Energy Directive (EU RED II) and California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standards. The company’s first scaled reforestation programmes commenced on 2,000 hectares of leased land.

Investancia has import and environmental licenses with the Ministries of Agriculture and Environment, MADES and SENAVE, in Paraguay, where the trees are being planted.

“With this pongamia oil supply agreement, we seek to diversify the portfolio of raw materials for the operation of our Omega Green biorefinery with lower carbon intensity solutions between the production harvests of vegetable oil" added Erasmo Battistella, CEO of ECB Group.

“This is a concrete and innovative decision in this direction, which in the medium term can reach one third of our feedstock needs for the production at Omega Green. The decision also already has a direct positive impact on Paraguay's economy by promoting agricultural production within a reforestation system that helps with carbon sequestration”.

The pongamia tree’s impact goes beyond producing HVO/SAF feedstock. The trees are highly sustainable and adaptive, requiring no fertiliser and are highly efficient at removing carbon. Each tree sequesters an average of 44kg CO2 annually - the highest of any oil producing crop. The pongamia meal - which is sourced from the ‘seedcake’ leftovers after the harvesting and crushing processes to extract the oil - is also rich in protein and is currently sold as animal feed.

Investancia was founded in 2013 and is backed by a European group of shareholders. The company has its corporate headquarters in the Netherlands, while its local forestry operations are based in Paraguay.

From its tree propagation site in Alto Paraguay, Investancia produces Pongamia oil, an advanced and highly scalable renewable feedstock with low-ILUC making it one of the best feedstock choices for HVO and Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) production also due to its extremely low CI levels. Unlike most next generation vegetable and waste oils, Pongamia oil has a positive climate impact resulting from the unique agroforestry practices applied by Investancia based on the principles of reforestation in silvopasture mode. To learn more, visit: www.investancia.com

The Omega Green biorefinery will be built in Paraguay and will have a total production capacity of 20,000 barrels per day, producing a mixture of fuels such as HVO (Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil, also known as Renewable Diesel), SPK (Synthetic Paraffin Kerosene, also known as Sustainable Aviation Fuel or Biojet), and Green Naphtha (used in the chemical industry to make green plastic, among other products). The venture includes contractor Honeywell UOP, owner of renewable fuel refining technology for UOP Processreactors ™, Crown Iron Works, a US company that provides pre-treatment equipment by upgrading renewable raw materials to a quality suitable for refining in biofuels, and Acciona, one of the largest engineering and construction companies in the world.

ECB Group was founded in 2011 by the entrepreneur Erasmo Carlos Battistella, who has investments and strategic stakes, in significant in companies in the Agroenergy sectors. The current investment portfolio includes participation in companies such as BSBIOS, R.P. BIO SWITZERLAND SA, ECB GROUP PARAGUAY and ECB GROUP BRASIL. To learn more, visit www.ecbgroup.com.br READ MORE