by Brianna Crandall — January 24, 2011—U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced on January 20 the offer of a conditional commitment to Diamond Green Diesel, LLC, the proposed joint venture between Valero Energy Corporation and Darling International Inc., for a $241 million loan guarantee. The guarantee will support the construction of a 137 million gallon-per-year renewable diesel facility in Norco, Louisiana, near New Orleans. Valero Energy plans to direct the design, construction and operation of the project and market all of its output, while Darling International will supply feedstock to the project.
The project will produce renewable diesel fuel primarily from animal fats, used cooking oil and other waste grease streams. The project will be the first application of its kind in the U.S. to use an innovative hydrotreating/isomerization process from Universal Oil Products (UOP), known as Ecofining, and a pretreatment process from Desmet Ballestra Group, which converts processed feedstock into high-quality diesel.
The companies estimate that the project will create 700 jobs during peak construction and over 60 jobs during operation. The project is expected to reduce greenhouse gases by more than 80 percent over conventional petroleum-based diesel and to nearly triple the amount of renewable diesel produced in the U.S. In addition, the facility will fulfill almost 14 percent of a national mandate to boost production for biomass-based diesel. Approximately 95 percent of the project components are expected to be produced in the United States.
For more information, see the DOE Web site.
