Sundrop Fuels selects contractor for inaugural plant

http://www.biomassmagazine.com/articles/9189/sundrop-fuels-selects-contractor-for-inaugural-plant

By Sun Drop Fuels Inc. | July 12, 2013

Sundrop Fuels Inc., a privately-held advanced biofuels company, announced that it has engaged international engineering and construction firm IHI E&C International Corporation, a U.S. subsidiary of Tokyo-based IHI Corporation, as contractor of choice for its inaugural facility near Alexandria, La.

The combined commercial and demonstration plant will annually produce about 60 million gallons of finished gasoline from natural gas while providing the platform for Sundrop Fuels to prove its proprietary gasification technology for making renewable “green gasoline” from woody biomass.

The success of Sundrop Fuels’ integrated commercial and demonstration plant will put in motion the company’s plan to build a series of renewable gasoline “megaplants,” each producing more than 200 million gallons of drop-in cellulosic biofuel annually. Sundrop Fuels expects to eventually have four such facilities in operation, representing a combined production capacity of more than one billion gallons – a significant percentage of the total cellulosic advanced biofuels goal set by the nation’s Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS).

“With IHI E&C’s talent and resources, Sundrop Fuels looks forward to formally breaking ground on the final stepping-stone toward becoming a major producer of affordable, drop-in biofuel,” said Sundrop Fuels CEO Wayne Simmons. “It has extensive experience and a long history of successful project execution in plants with similar configurations and process units.”

”We are very excited to be involved in this gas to gasoline commercial project that utilizes proven technologies for the conversion of natural gas, first to methanol, and then to gasoline,” said Glyn Rodgers, IHI E&C President.

Located one mile west of Alexandria in Boyce, Louisiana, Sundrop Fuels has begun site preparation on the combined commercial and demonstration plant, which will occupy approximately 100 of the 1,213 acres that the company purchased in February. Formal construction is scheduled to begin late this year, with operations expected to begin at the end of 2015.