Phelan Green selects Honeywell process technology for flagship South African eSAF facility

Image: Honeywell

Honeywell announced April 1 that Phelan Green, through its clean-fuels subsidiary Phelan eFuels, has selected its renewable fuel process technology for its planned electro sustainable aviation fuel (eSAF) facility in Saldanha Bay, Western Cape, South Africa. 

Phelan eFuels will deploy Honeywell UOP’s Fischer Tropsch Unicracking™ process technology, which uses FT liquids and waxes made from CO2 to create eSAF that complies with aviation industry standards. 

“We selected Honeywell’s Fischer Tropsch Unicracking process technology because it provides a proven, bankable pathway to produce sustainable aviation fuel at scale,” said Chairman Paschal Phelan. “This project is a major milestone for Phelan Green and for South Africa’s emerging eFuels economy, and demonstrates our commitment to industrial development, job creation and innovative energy projects that are at the cutting edge of emission reduction.” 

The new facility forms a core part of the Phelan Green Hydrogen Project, a USD$2.5 billion private investment that has been formally recognized by the South African government as a nationally strategic green industrial development.  

Once operational, the project will be one of the world’s first commercial-scale eSAF production facilities supplying more than 140,000 tons of eSAF to the EU and U.K. markets. 

“Honeywell’s technologies are designed to enable scalable, efficient and flexible production of low-carbon fuels,” said Rajesh Gattupalli, president of Honeywell UOP. “In this case, our Fischer Tropsch Unicracking process technology will help support Phelan eFuels’ goal to encourage commercial-scale sustainable aviation fuel production in South Africa.” 

Construction of the Saldanha Bay facility will commence in the fourth quarter of this year and support thousands of local jobs across multiple phases, helping position the country as a competitive export hub for next-generation aviation fuels.