US renewable fuels company DG Fuels intends to produce more sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) than it initially planned at its flagship Louisiana project, albeit on a later timeline.
DG Fuels president Christopher Chaput told Argus that the company is working to reach a final investment decision on its Louisiana facility by the first quarter of next year and is on track to start delivering "meaningful" amounts of SAF from the site in 2030, later than initially expected.
The company continues to look at other potential facilities across the country but is prioritizing its Louisiana plant, which will use the Fischer-Tropsch chemical process to gasify agricultural waste into low-carbon fuels.
"Not exclusively, but we are focusing really, really, really hard on the first project, which is Louisiana," Chaput said.
Potential sites in Nebraska and Minnesota are the next-furthest along, and the company still owns land in Maine where it could build a similar SAF plant. The facilities would use similar technology but draw from different feedstocks, such as local forest or agricultural waste, and different types of hydrogen.
The plan in Louisiana is to produce blue hydrogen, which involves capturing carbon emissions and is eligible for a federal tax credit.
That Louisiana facility has also expanded in size, and Chaput says it could ultimately produce 195-200mn USG/yr of fuel — up from estimates last year and an initial projection of 120mn USG/yr.
Chaput says the plant's size — which would give it the highest capacity of all Fischer-Tropsch SAF plants planned globally according to Argus estimates — will be an advantage for ultimately producing a cost-competitive fuel.
Other potential DG Fuels facilities would be similarly large, a different approach from some other US developers like Aether Fuels, Natural State Renewables and now-defunct Fulcrum Bioenergy that have eyed a similar production process on smaller sites.
Some biofuel producers already operational today use a separate process to produce SAF, hydroprocessing vegetable oils and animal fats, and have higher production capacities. But that pathway could ultimately be limited by feedstock constraints and competition from renewable diesel, analysts say, which has spurred investors and airlines to look at other potential pathways.
While plants eyeing production in the 2030s might be less exposed to immediate policy risks, biofuel producers in the US have struggled to start 2025 as margins crash from the halting rollout of a new federal tax credit and delayed blend mandates. President Donald Trump's aggressive efforts to curb renewables have scared climate tech start-ups, though Trump has also voiced general support for some other clean energy sources, including biofuels.
A government loan to support US refiner Calumet's efforts to produce more SAF was briefly halted this year and then [unpaused]( https://direct.argusmedia.com/newsandanalysis/article/2656961) after a Republican US senator intervened.
And policies abroad — including increasingly stringent SAF mandates in the EU and UK — could ultimately support clean fuel developers in the US even if incentives shift stateside.
