Renewable Energy Group launched five new products—sustainable fuels for aviation, rail, trucking, and other transportation industries. (Photo courtesy of REG)
This week, the Iowa-based Renewable Energy Group (REG) announced the launch of a new line of advanced sustainable fuels. Later this year, REG will be acquired by Chevron along with its outstanding shares (a transaction valued at $3.15 billion); REG President and CEO Cynthia (CJ) Warner will also join the Board of Directors at Chevron. Sustainable fuels such as the biodiesel that REG produces are in high demand not only in aviation but across the transportation industry as companies work towards their goals for sustainability and decarbonization.
REG claims that their product line of fuels enable up to an 80% reduction in emissions for marine, aviation, rail, trucking, and other industries. At the virtual launch event this week, Warner was the first to introduce REG’s EnDura Fuels line of renewable fuels. “We view these as game-changers for bio-based diesel,” she said, revealing the PuriD, InfiniD, VelociD, and UltraClean Blend products—the UltraClean being a combination of PuriD and VelociD.
“PuriD is a high-quality, easy to adopt, next-generation sustainable diesel replacement,” Warner explained. “It is developed for seamless blending with renewable diesel, including VelociD—the company’s clean-burning renewable diesel.”
Pictured is CEO and President of REG, CJ Warner, sharing the company’s new line of EnDura Fuels. (Photo from REG’s virtual launch event on March 30)
Along with the four biodiesel and renewable diesel options, REG also introduced a sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) in their EnDura Fuels lineup—BeyonD. Says Warner, “This is our low-carbon sustainable aviation fuel that will help lead the decarbonization of the aviation industry. As one of the leading experts in renewable diesel, process technology, and production, the team at REG is positioned to offer clean aviation fuel to this growing market.”
According to REG, their BeyonD SAF meets the ASTM D7566 fuel specification, it is produced with no fossil carbon, and it is a clean-burning blendstock for petroleum jet fuel. Their SAF is made using 100% renewable oils and fats, compared with other SAF and renewable diesel made from methanol that often use conventional natural gas.
In an interview with Avionics International, Bob Kenyon, Senior Vice President of Sales & Marketing for REG, shared his thoughts on the new EnDura line of fuels, including their SAF option, BeyonD. “We wanted to make sure we differentiated ourselves from renewable diesel, biodiesel, or SAF and really created something that our customers embraced,” Kenyon said.
“REG was actually the first manufacturer of sustainable aviation fuel at our Geismar, Louisiana facility. We recently announced that we’re actually increasing capability for production of renewable diesel and SAF at the Louisiana facility which today produces 90 million gallons of renewable diesel.”
After a planned upgrade project, which will be completed by the beginning of 2024, their total production capacity will increase to 340 million gallons. Most of that will be renewable diesel, Kenyon added, but some will be SAF. “It really will depend on how the market shapes itself over the next several months with regard to customer demand and access and need for low-carbon fuel solutions in each of the transportation sectors that we serve,” he said.
The new products include four biodiesel and renewable diesel options in addition to the BeyonD sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). (REG)
The team at REG prioritizes an understanding of what they call the “clean energy transition” and hopes to accelerate that trend. “There is truly an inflection point right now,” explained Kenyon, “where you’ve got societal pull and regulatory push for clean energy solutions that can have immediate reduction in carbon. We have global customers that have significant carbon reduction goals, with really aggressive targets in 2030, 2040, 2050. It’s taking an all-in approach for them, not just looking at one way of changing their carbon footprint—for example, electrification.”
Bob Kenyon commented that they are beginning to take part in some preliminary discussions with OEMs in the aviation space. “Today, we have really strong partnerships in the OEM space for on-road and off-road applications,” he said. “As more and more customers start to think about how to introduce SAF into their operations, and partnering with REG and the BeyonD product, we’ll have more conversations with those folks and start thinking about the technical specifications of blends, applications in different climates and in different types of aircraft, and things like that. We’re still in the early stages today of what that journey looks like from a technical perspective.”