Saudi Arabia-based alfanar group is set to invest £1bn to support a project on Teesside that will produce sustainable aviation fuel (SAF).
The investment will support the Lighthouse Green Fuels (LGF) project in Tees Valley.
LGF Project will use the country’s household waste to produce SAF.
The project is anticipated to generate over 700 jobs during construction that will begin next year, along with 240 full-time jobs upon becoming fully operational.
Aviation fuel produced from this facility is expected to generate 80% less greenhouse gas compared to its fossil fuel equivalent.
The fresh infusion is said to follow a promise made by another Saudi firm Sabic last year to invest around £850m to restart its hydrocarbons ‘cracker’ at Wilton, on Teesside.
In a statement, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said: “The UK is building an international coalition to deal with the new reality we face. The world must wean itself off Russian hydrocarbons and starve Putin’s addiction to oil and gas.”
In August last year, the LGF project was shortlisted for the UK Government’s Department of Transport’s (DfT) Green Fuels, Green Skies (GFGS) Competition.
During that time, alfanar stated that it intends to implement SAF production technologies on a commercial scale to restrict emissions from the aviation sector.
The LGF project is said to become the first commercial-scale SAF production plant in the country.
For the transformation of household and commercial waste, the waste-to-liquid (WtL) process deploys gasification and Fischer-Tropsch (FT) technology.
In August last year, Teesside International Airport (MME) announced the trial of hydrogen-driven vehicles.
