Eni Sustainable Mobility Spa, Rome, Italy, and Delaware refinery owner PBF Energy Inc. closed on a 50-50 joint venture partnership in St. Bernard Renewables LLC (SBR), an operating biorefinery co-located with PBF’s Chalmette Refinery near New Orleans.
PBF’s affiliate contributed the biorefinery and other assets comprising the business to SBR and Eni Sustainable Mobility’s affiliate has committed to make capital reimbursements and contributions totaling $835 million to PBF, of which $431 million was paid at closing.
Eni Sustainable Mobility will contribute the remainder of the total consideration upon the start-up of the pre-treatment unit. An additional $50 million in contingent consideration will be paid by Eni Sustainable Mobility subject to the achievement of certain project milestones and performance criteria.
“Closing this strategic partnership with Eni Sustainable Mobility, a global leader in biorefining, demonstrates our commitment to delivering diversified sources of energy to our customers, while lowering the carbon intensity of the products we manufacture,” said PBF President Matthew Lucey. “The SBR biorefinery will benefit from PBF and Eni’s complementary strengths and expertise. We are excited about our partnership with Eni and look forward to reaching full operations at SBR.”
The St. Bernard Renewables biorefinery launched operations beginning in June. The pretreatment unit is complete, and its start-up is expected in the coming weeks. SBR is currently targeted to have a processing capacity of about 1.1 million tons a year of raw materials that can include waste organic oils.
It will minly produce “renewable diesel” in North America), with a production capacity of 306 million gallons per year. The biorefinery is using the Ecofining process developed by Eni in cooperation with Honeywell UOP.
SBR will operate as an independent entity with feed procurement and product distribution managed by a team working on behalf of the St. Bernard Renewables joint venture.
Ownership of the existing Chalmette refinery will not be affected by the formation of the new partnership.
Renewable diesel is seen as a way to transition from a fossil fuel economy.
