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Maire Tecnimont’s NextChem group awarded FEED contract for TotalEnergies’ new SAF plant

| By Mary Bailey

Maire Tecnimont S.p.A. (Milan, Italy) announced that its subsidiary NextChem has been awarded a contract by TotalEnergies to carry out a Front-End Engineering Design (FEED) and supply its technological know-how to implement a Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) plant in Grandpuits, France, capable of processing 400,000 metric tons per year (m.t./yr). 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 m.t./yr.

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”. 

“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.

Pierroberto Folgiero, Chief Executive Officer of Maire Tecnimont Group and NextChem commented: “We are very happy to continue strengthening our strategic collaboration with a prestigious global player like TotalEnergies: being the partner of choice for its ambitious Grandpuits energy transition project is exciting, as innovative corporations have pioneering goals and may make the difference in Europe’s challenging path to decarbonization. Combining Maire Tecnimont’s leading experience in EPC contracting in the natural resources transformation sector worldwide, with NextChem’s focus on deploying solutions in carbon footprint reduction through the development of new technologies is a winning value proposition.  The air transportation sector is looking for biofuels solutions urgently, to cope with the challenging targets for GHG emissions reduction. This partnership will give a concrete answer to a concrete need.”