A Texas-based biodiesel company is setting up a manufacturing facility in Sarnia that'll create over 40 full-time jobs when fully operational.
Bioindustrial Innovation Canada (BIC) has approved an unspecified investment in Benefuel Inc., that wants to build a commercial demonstration refinery, possibly on the former Lanxess site on Vidal St. S. now Arlanxeo.
BIC Executive Director Sandy Marshall says the company's patented catalyst technology produces a low carbon intensity biodiesel from various food and agriculture waste streams.
"My understanding is they can use a wide variety of feedstocks from the traditional materials like fats and oils, and those sorts of materials," says Marshall. "So sometimes it can be vegetable oils like corn oil or soy oil, but it can also be things like fats and greases from restaurants and so on, that are recycled."
Marshall says Benefuel, which has a similar large-scale demonstration plant in Nebraska, will build a modular plant in units and put it together on site.
Benefuel CEO Rob Tripp tells BlackburnNews.com by email that a location at Lanxess is being evaluated and a decision is expected later this year.
He says the first phase of their Sarnia project will produce 75-million litres a year with production likely to start in 2020. No date is set for a second refining unit that would double plant capacity.
Tripp says petroleum refiners and fuel distributors will buy their biofuel and blend it with petroleum diesel to offset greenhouse gas emissions.
-With files from Dave Dentinger