Razon-led firm Prime Infrastructure Holdings Corporation (Prime Infra) has set up a subsidiary company that will carry out its targeted investments that will transform the country’s massive wastes into ‘black gold’ or a venture into waste-based fuels production.
The new corporate vehicle, WasteFuel Philippines, is Prime Infra’s partnership with American firm WasteFuel Global, according to the infrastructure investment firm of the Razon group.
Prime Infra said the newly minted subsidiary is currently evaluating the feasibility of setting up a biorefinery in Luzon, and that project is targeted to reach commercial operation in 2025.
The propounded biorefinery will have the capacity to convert more than one million tons of municipal
wastes into 30 million gallons of low-carbon synthetic crude oil (syncrude) on a yearly basis – and the initial targeted market will be for aviation.
At this stage, Prime Infra noted that NetJets, which is a leader in private aviation, “has committed to purchase a minimum of 100 million gallons of sustainable aviation fuel (ASF) from Wastefuel” – and that will be within a duration of 10 years.
Guillaume Lucci, president of Prime Infra, has cited that the capital region of the Philippines alone “generates around 10,000 tons of municipal solid waste per day,” which by proportion, could be equivalent to approximately 17 Airbus A380 planes.
It is within that premise, he noted, that WasteFuel Philippines had anchored its business proposition of “turning waste into a valuable source of clean energy,” that in turn, would be “improving waste management processes and reducing carbon emissions from transportation.”
As cast on blueprint, WasteFuel will be utilizing the most effective technologies available to produce fuels that could “burn up to 80-percent reduction in carbon compared to fossil fuel-based aviation fuels.”
Trevor Nelson, chairman of WasteFuel Global, emphasized that “the project will help solve the municipal waste problem and minimize methane emissions from landfills.”
He added that beyond fuel production, its partnership venture with Prime Infra, will also delve with “addressing sustainability in a whole different way and creates a profound social and environmental impact.”