Spanish energy company Reolum has awarded Spanish engineering company Técnicas Reunidas and German Siemens Energy the front-end engineering design (FEED) contract for the La Robla Green project, a large e-methanol plant in the municipality of La Robla, in the Spanish province of León.
As disclosed, the facility, with a production capacity of 140,000 tons per year, will combine biogenic carbon from a biomass cogeneration plant with renewable hydrogen to produce e-methanol.
E-methanol is expected to play an important role in the decarbonization of maritime transport in its direct use as a fuel and as a raw material for the production of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). Furthermore, methanol produced from low-emission feedstocks and technologies is considered a key product to facilitate the decarbonization of industrial sectors that currently have high levels of emissions.
According to the scope of the FEED contract, Siemens Energy’s work will focus on the renewable hydrogen unit and Técnicas Reunidas’ work will focus on the biogenic carbon capture and e-methanol production units.
For the project, Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries will be the CO2 capture licensor and British Johnson Matthey the supplier of a proprietary technology eMERALD, a process that converts captured CO2 to methanol.
To note, as part of the NextGenerationEU initiative, the project received €180 million in funding from the Spanish Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge.