$1.67 Billion to Montana Renewables to Significantly Expand US Sustainable Aviation Fuel Production – CleanTechnica

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Montana Renewables will expand its renewable fuels facility to scale up sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) production.

As part of the Biden-Harris administration’s Investing in America agenda, the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Loan Programs Office (LPO) announced today the closing of a $1.67 billion ($1.44 billion of principal and $233 million of capitalized interest) to Montana Renewables, LLC (Montana Renewables, or MRL). The loan guarantee will help finance the expansion of a renewable fuels facility in Great Falls, Montana to produce sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), renewable diesel, and renewable naphtha. Today’s announcement underscores President Biden and Vice President Harris’ efforts to build a thriving bioeconomy that benefits all Americans while also helping advance sustainable fuels to cut harmful emissions and deliver healthier communities across the nation.

The decarbonization of the U.S. transportation and industrial sectors depends on a significant increase in the production of biofuels—which are expected to deliver new economic opportunities for agricultural and rural communities across the nation while tackling the climate crisis. This project will utilize vegetable oils, fats, and greases to produce sustainable fuels.

The MRL facility has been in operation since late 2022, currently producing about 140 million gallons per year of biofuels, most of which is renewable diesel. The loan guarantee will fund facility expansion to produce about 315 million gallons per year of biofuels­­, most of which will be SAF. Once the facility reaches full capacity, Montana Renewables will be a leading global SAF producer, expected to produce about half of all North American SAF and about 12% of all global SAF through 2030. MRL will produce fuels with significantly lower greenhouse gas emissions, on a life cycle basis, when compared to the production and consumption of conventional co-products, including jet fuel.

This project supports the Biden-Harris Administration’s SAF Grand Challenge goal of increasing U.S. production of SAF to 3 billion gallons per year by 2030 and 35 billion gallons per year by 2050. As the aviation sector aims to meet its decarbonization goals, SAF will become increasingly vital. SAF is one of the only viable near-term options to decarbonize the airline industry, which is responsible for 11% of U.S. transportation emissions or 3.3% of total U.S. emissions.

LPO borrowers are required to develop and ultimately implement a comprehensive Community Benefits Plan (CBP). CBPs ensure borrowers meaningfully engage with community and labor groups to create good-paying jobs and improve the well-being of the local community and workers. This project is expected to create, at its peak, 450 construction jobs and up to 40 new operations jobs. A majority of the workers currently employed at the MRL facility are union workers covered by a collective bargaining agreement with the United States Steelworkers Local 0491. For more than a decade, Calumet (the parent company of MRL) has funded various Great Falls educational initiatives in science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics at local schools and colleges.

President Biden and Vice President Harris’ Justice40 Initiative, established by Executive Order 14008, sets a goal that 40% of the overall benefits of certain federal investments in climate, clean energy, and other areas flow to disadvantaged communities that are marginalized by underinvestment and overburdened by pollution. Many of the communities surrounding Great Falls are disadvantaged communities, as identified by the Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool, due to high energy burdens and housing costs. MRL has made a concerted effort to hire a majority of its non-salaried workforce from the local community.

To learn more about how biofuels can help decarbonize hard-to-electrify sectors such as aviation, read about the Bioenergy Technology Office’s Billion-Ton Report here.

LPO has been considering Montana Renewables’ application since September 2022.

The loan guarantee is offered through LPO’s Energy Infrastructure Reinvestment (EIR) program under Title 17 Clean Energy Financing Section 1706. EIR can finance projects that retool, repower, repurpose, or replace energy infrastructure that has ceased operations or enable operating energy infrastructure to avoid, reduce, utilize, or sequester air pollutants or greenhouse gas emissions. This project will convert a portion of an oil refinery to produce renewable fuels. The project will also reduce the carbon intensity of steam production and consumption in the neighboring oil refinery.

Across all LPO’s programs, DOE has attracted 182 applications for projects across the country totaling over $278.9 billion in requested loans and loan guarantees, as of December 2024. For more information about Montana Renewables, read the conditional commitment blog post and visit LPO’s portfolio project page.