DG Fuels, a Washington, D.C., sustainable fuel company, is evaluating a 3,000-acre site in St. James Parish for a potential sustainable aviation fuel plant, Louisiana Economic Development announced Tuesday.
The proposed plant would create 1,055 direct new jobs with an average annual salary of $72,000, according to an LED news release. It could also lead to another 5,231 indirect jobs.
DG Fuels has an option on the site. The company has started a front-end engineering, or FEED, study on the site, which is located on the west bank of St. James Parish. That study should be complete by August, and a final investment decision on the project is expected by the end of this year. Plant construction would take about three years.
“I’m looking forward to exploring what appears to be a great opportunity for our parish,” St. James Parish President Pete Dufresne said in a statement.
DG Fuels has developed a process to take agricultural and timber waste and turn it into sustainable aviation fuel, according to LED. The fuel’s carbon intensity score is 100% less than standard aviation fuel.
The plant would produce up to 178 million gallons of sustainable aviation fuel annually, LED said. Its processes should lead to carbon dioxide emissions reductions of 1.65 million tons per year.
“DG Fuels’ baseline process differs from other systems by having little or no environmental emissions either to the atmosphere or waters, while at the same time providing a customer for all forms of agricultural waste to the region’s agricultural community,” DG Fuels CEO Michael C. Darcy said in a statement.
DG Fuels is far from the only company evaluating Louisiana for a renewable fuel or biofuel project.
Grön Fuels is considering building a $9.2 billion biofuel plant at the Port of Greater Baton Rouge. The company has said it expects to start providing sustainable aviation fuel to one of its key customers, JetBlue, by 2025, though it has not made a final investment decision on the project yet.
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