Refining aviation fuel from waste oil or speculation： cost and risk are difficult to control.

Our reporter Hu Feifei is from Guangzhou.

The stinking gutter oil will be processed and refined into aviation fuel?

Since the beginning of this year, the above statement has been "confirmed" by some media. The news comes from the fact that on February 28th, the Civil Aviation Administration of China officially accepted Sinopec’s application for airworthiness of No.1 bio-aviation kerosene-Sinopec Zhenhai Refining & Chemical Co., Ltd. has been able to extract bio-aviation oil from a variety of animal and vegetable oils, and it can be mass-produced after the application is approved.

Based on the broad prospects of bio-fuel market, it is even reported that foreign airlines have signed contracts with waste oil recycling enterprises in China to purchase a large number of waste oil to refine bio-jet fuel.

However, Sinopec and Zhenhai Refining and Chemical Company, the producer of No.1 bio-jet fuel, told Time Weekly that it was a misunderstanding of some media to use waste oil to refine bio-jet fuel. Zhenhai Refining and Chemical Company has successfully produced No.1 bio-aviation kerosene, and the raw material used is not waste oil, which is only "a direction for future expansion".

According to the bioenergy experts interviewed, considering the cost risk, enterprises that master bio-jet fuel technology generally use animal and vegetable oils directly instead of waste oil for production.

In addition, the so-called China oil supply enterprises also confirmed that the commercial cooperation with foreign airlines is only an intention at present, and there is no substantial progress.

Have a good time

On February 28th this year, in the Great Hall of the People, the Civil Aviation Administration of China officially accepted the application for airworthiness certification of No.1 bio-jet fuel developed by Sinopec.

Bio-jet fuel refers to aviation kerosene produced from renewable resources. In view of its particularity, it can only be put into use and produced on a large scale after strict demonstration and airworthiness certification by the Civil Aviation Administration of China and the Aviation Oil Appraisal Committee.

Previously, after two years of research and development, since December 12, 2011, Sinopec Zhenhai Refining and Chemical Hangzhou Company has successfully realized industrial scale-up production and produced bio-jet fuel, becoming the first enterprise in China with independent bio-jet fuel production technology and mass production capacity.

This news was interpreted by some media as Sinopec has been able to use waste oil to refine bio-jet fuel, which triggered a heated public discussion. In fact, gutter oil has become a lingering haze for Chinese people to eat. If it can be used as "waste" to produce aviation fuel, it will benefit the country and the people.

However, media reports have made Sinopec quite passive. "With regard to bio-jet fuel, our latest news is limited to the airworthiness application submitted to the Civil Aviation Administration of China on February 28 this year." A person from the Information Office of Sinopec told Time Weekly, "As for raw materials, we never mentioned the word’ gutter oil’ from beginning to end, but’ various animal and vegetable oils’. If you want to use (ditch oil) in the future, you will inform the media. "

"At present, China Petrochemical Co., Ltd. is actively expanding the source of raw materials for bio-jet fuel, and strives to develop the technology of processing waste cooking oil and seaweed to produce bio-jet fuel." The news release of the day wrote this.

Huang Zhongwen, Minister of Propaganda Department of Zhenhai Refining & Chemical Company, confirmed the above statement, saying that some media reports about "cooking bio-jet fuel with waste oil" were not recognized by the company and were misunderstood.

"We didn’t use waste oil!" Huang stressed. What specific raw materials, he said that it is inconvenient to disclose, "it is not waste oil from catering, but biological raw materials anyway." The gutter oil is "just a direction for future expansion".

Regarding the test flight concerned by the public, Huang said that it is still in the demonstration stage and there is no clear timetable. Previously, the media’s statement that "the airworthiness certification will be completed as soon as January next year" is not credible.

Huang revealed that because the current production cost of bio-jet fuel is much higher than that of traditional petrochemical jet fuel, the project is still in the experimental stage, "as a strategic reserve of Sinopec", so the prospect is not easy to analyze.

Another eloquent "proof" about refining bio-jet fuel from waste oil is that in July this year, KLM signed a contract with Shanghai Luming Environmental Protection Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Shanghai Luming") to purchase more than 10,000 tons of waste oil from China, and the first batch of 2,000 tons has been delivered.

The relevant person of Shanghai Luming told Time Weekly that the cooperation between the company and the Netherlands is not as reported by the media. "The two sides are only interested, but they have not yet progressed to that step."

"I heard how many tons of waste oil foreign companies bought from China to make aviation fuel. My first reaction was that either someone wanted to speculate on waste oil, or the media was not familiar with the technology and made a mistake." Andy Lau, a bioenergy expert and professor of Tsinghua University Chemical Industry Department, told the Times Weekly reporter.

Cost determines raw materials.

The Aviation Carbon Tax Act passed by the European Union on November 19th, 2008 and officially implemented on January 1st, 2012 has accelerated the pace of developing bio-aviation fuel in the world.

Wang Changshun, president of IATA and chairman of Air China China, said in June this year that in the next eight years, the EU carbon transaction tax will increase the transportation cost of China’s civil aviation by 17.9 billion yuan. If bio-aviation fuel is used, airlines will save a lot of money.

The industry predicts that by 2020, the usage of bio-jet fuel in China will reach 30% of the total jet fuel; According to the price of 10,000 yuan per ton of bio-jet fuel, the market capacity will reach 120 billion yuan by then. By 2040, about 80% of the world’s aircraft will use bio-jet fuel.

This will undoubtedly be a huge market. The question is, what kind of raw materials are used to produce bio-jet fuel, and at the same time ensure that it can be accepted by airlines and used continuously?

On the topic of "Sustainable Development" at the Beijing Sub-forum of this year’s World Economic Forum (Davos), Fu Xingguo, deputy chief engineer of Petrochemical Research Institute, who is in charge of implementing PetroChina’s biofuel plan, revealed to Andy Lau that the current cost of biofuel is three times that of existing petrochemical aviation fuel.

"Do you accept this fuel?" Liu asked the relevant leaders of the Civil Aviation Administration of China next to him. The other party laughed without a word. Biojet fuel technology was not initiated by China, but was first developed and utilized by foreign companies. However, Andy Lau has never heard of using waste oil to refine bio-jet fuel or biodiesel which is more widely used.

"Because this process (hydrogenation catalysis) determines its high requirements for raw materials, the composition of waste oil is so complicated, how is it possible?" Andy Lau questioned, "I don’t think a company with the technology to process bio-oil into bio-fuel will take the risk of using waste oil as aviation fuel."

"The technology is absolutely mature, no problem." For example, Liu said that a company in Finland has an annual maximum processing capacity of 500,000 tons. However, foreign oil companies generally use bio-oil for refining directly, so the risk will be much smaller. If waste oil is used, it will undoubtedly greatly increase the cost and risk.

Considering the cost of raw materials, even though gutter oil is cheaper than bio-oil, it is not a ton of gutter oil that can refine a ton of bio-jet oil.

"Since the purpose of (using bio-oil and waste oil) is to reduce carbon, why do you have to push yourself into such a narrow road of waste oil?" Liu asked.

It is also reported that some foreign companies want to cooperate with KFC, McDonald’s and other large catering enterprises to purchase waste cooking oil for processing bio-jet fuel. Andy Lau believes that this move is still feasible. "In this way, the quality of oil products will be relatively stable and the quantity will be large, which is different from the waste oil from thousands of households in China."

Waste oil purchase chaos

There is no useless rubbish, only misplaced resources.

China’s unique eating habits determine that a large amount of waste cooking oil will be produced every year. If it can be fully utilized to make biodiesel or chemical products, it will achieve a "win-win" between environmental protection and economy. However, the weakness of food supervision has made the whereabouts of a considerable part of catering waste oil a mystery, and the development of related industries has also fallen into difficulties.

In view of all kinds of food safety problems caused by kitchen waste such as "gutter oil" and "garbage pig", in 2011, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development jointly issued a document, announcing the list of the first batch of 33 pilot cities in China for resource utilization and harmless treatment of kitchen waste. Cities began to designate qualified environmental protection enterprises to recycle and treat kitchen waste in a unified way.

However, kitchen waste can never be managed by announcing a number of pilot cities and designating some recycling enterprises. "It needs the joint efforts of public security, industry and commerce, health and other departments." Many interviewees expressed this view.

The setbacks and difficulties encountered in reality are incredible: formal enterprises are often "hungry", but unlicensed vendors are full of brains. From the perspective of benefits, restaurants prefer to hand over kitchen waste to unlicensed vendors, rather than informal enterprises-the former often pays much higher return fees than the latter.

Taking Fujian as an example, Yuan Baogan, general manager of Fuzhou Tiantai Environmental Protection Company, told Time Weekly that there were originally four kitchen waste recycling enterprises, but now there is only one, and individual enterprises just closed down due to lack of business and losses.

Even if it is alone, the company still feels "not enough to eat": including Fuzhou, Ningde and Wuyishan, the company can only receive 2,000 tons of kitchen waste every year, while the company’s annual processing capacity is 3,600 tons.

A more extreme example is Fujian Longyan Zhuoyue New Energy Company. In Xiamen, the company unified the dress of vehicles and personnel to show professionalism and formality. As a result, it became a "living target": wherever the recyclers went, they were chased by criminals.

"The production cost can be reduced by improving technology, but the cost of raw materials is very difficult. It is impossible for petrochemical enterprises to go to restaurants to collect waste oil." Andy Lau admitted that the disorderly supervision made him lack confidence in the development prospect of bio-fuel as a sunrise industry in China.

"At least in the short term, it is difficult to change." He said.

The China market that is not optimistic

From a global perspective, biofuels have a stable and broad market.

In 2011, the global consumption of biodiesel reached 20 million tons. Many countries legally require that petrochemical enterprises must add a certain proportion of biodiesel in order to promote the development of biofuel industry.

As a developing country, China has been actively responding to the international call of "energy saving and emission reduction" in recent years, vigorously developing the biodiesel industry, and publishing relevant standards and tax exemption policies.

On September 26th, 2010, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ) and the Standards Committee jointly issued the Standard for Biodiesel Blended Fuel (B5 Standard), which was implemented in February of the following year.

On December 17, 2010, the Ministry of Finance and the State Administration of Taxation issued a document, stipulating that from January 1, 2009, enterprises that use waste animal and vegetable oils to produce pure biodiesel and meet the relevant conditions will be exempted from consumption tax; Enterprises that have paid taxes before the issuance of the notice and meet the requirements shall be refunded according to regulations.

However, "standards are not equal to legal compulsion", Andy Lau said.

An expert who did not want to be named said that according to the national renewable energy law, oil companies have the obligation and responsibility to accept and promote the use of biofuels, but in reality they "are not actively doing this".

The relevant state subsidies are not in place. The subsidies for solar energy and wind energy in China are relatively large, but there are no other biofuels except for the stable subsidy system for fuel alcohol, which consumes more than 1 million tons every year.

Another unknown situation is that China’s annual oil imports account for 55%-56% of the total consumption, while the proportion of edible oil imports reaches over 70%. "Therefore, the government will control it even more, and will not allow edible oil to be used as biofuel, otherwise it will lead to an increase in the price of edible oil and even affect social stability." Andy Lau said.

Andy Lau revealed that at present, China’s bio-fuel technology is mostly commercialized in overseas markets such as Germany and Brazil. These countries not only have legal and market guarantees, but also have rich sources of raw materials.

In Andy Lau’s view, China petroleum should develop bio-fuel in Africa, South America and other areas with sparse population, vast land and rich oil resources.

"This not only gets the oil source, (partially) solves the problem of energy shortage in China, but also conforms to the world development trend of low carbon, green and environmental protection, and can win a good international reputation. Why not?" He said.