Fuels and chemicals

Ensyn affiliate receives $70 million USDA loan guarantee

New York-based Ensyn Corp. has announced its affiliate, Ensyn Georgia Biorefinery I LLC, has been granted a conditional commitment from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for a $70 million loan guarantee.

The conditional commitment has been extended pertaining to the USDA’s Section 9003 Biorefinery Assistance Program and is related to a cellulosic fuels production project to be located in the state of Georgia. Ensyn Georgia Biorefinery I LLC is wholly owned by Ensyn Development Partners LLC (EDP), a joint venture of Ensyn and Renova Capital Partners LLC, a Denver-based private investment partnership. The role of EDP is to develop and finance certain projects in the United States, deploying Ensyn’s RTP technology to produce renewable fuels and refinery feedstocks from cellulosic biomass.

The conditional commitment is important to the Georgia project, which will consist of a 20 million gallons-per-year Renewable Fuel Oil (RFO) production facility, according to Ensyn. RFO, Ensyn’s cellulosic liquid fuel, is produced by processing nonfood solid biomass, including wood residues, with Ensyn’s Rapid Thermal Processing (RTP) technology.

RFO can be used as a renewable heating fuel and also as a renewable feedstock for petroleum refineries. As a renewable heating fuel, RFO can directly displaces fossil fuels in institutional and industrial boilers, says Ensyn. As a renewable cellulosic feedstock for refineries, RFO is coprocessed with traditional refinery feedstocks leading to the production of gasoline and diesel fuels in an application known as refinery coprocessing.