TotalEnergies awards NextChem FEED contract for Grandpuits SAF conversion

In Italy, Maire Tecnimont S.p.A. announces that its subsidiary NextChem has been awarded a contract by TotalEnergies to carry out a Front-End Engineering Design and supply its technological know-how to implement a Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) plant in Grandpuits, France, capable of processing 400,000 tons per year (ton/y). The project is part of the plan to convert the Grandpuits Refinery into a zero-crude platform that will include a Bio Refinery, where NextChem is already engineering Europe’s first plant to produce compostable and biodegradable plastics, with a capacity of 100,000 ton/y.

The BioJet plant, due to be operational in 2024, will strengthen NextChem’s role in TotalEnergies’s net-zero strategy as a major part of the Grandpuits Refinery “zero-crude” platform development, known as “Projet Galaxie”.

The “Projet Galaxie” will produce BioJet fuels by treating primarily animal fats from Europe and used cooking oil. This new unit will be aligned with France’s roadmap for the deployment of sustainable aviation biofuels, which includes a target of 2% by 2025 and 5% by 2030.