TotalEnergies and ENEOS to switch SAF production to Wakayama

TotalEnergies and ENEOS Corporation will pursue  their feasibility study for a sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) production unit at the ENEOS  Wakayama refinery in Arida, Japan. 

In April 2022, Japan’s ENEOS Corporation announced that it was conducting a feasibility study, together with French energy company TotalEnergies, to conduct a feasibility study to assess the production of sustainable  aviation fuel at ENEOS’ Negishi Refinery in Yokohama City, Japan. Negishi Refinery is located near the largest aviation fuel demand area in Japan—Narita  and Haneda airports.

However, industrial, technical and  competitiveness criteria have led the partners to switch the project location to the Wakayama refinery.

The two companies have already started to conduct the study for feedstock procurement and  production of SAF related to this project. The proposed unit, which would have a capacity of 300,000 tons per year of SAF, would process waste or residue sourced from the circular  economy, mainly used cooking oil and animal fat. ENEOS and TotalEnergies are considering  establishing a new joint venture to produce SAF. 

This collaboration will leverage the companies’ respective areas of excellence and expertise  to develop mass production of SAF and a sustainable supply chain for SAF in Japan by 2026.  

Japan’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport  and Tourism (MLIT) has set a target of 10% SAF use to be achieved by 2030.