JX Nippon Oil & Gas Exploration Corporation and Sumitomo Corporation have executed consortium agreements to manage investment in the Louisiana Green Fuels BECCS (bioenergy with carbon capture and storage) project at Port of Columbia in Caldwell Parish, Louisiana.

The project, referred to as Louisiana Green Fuels, converts woody biomass waste into sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), with renewable naphtha (RN) as a by-product. Coupled with an onsite carbon capture and storage (CCS) facility, the project reduces carbon emissions equivalent to removing nearly 300,000 passenger cars from the road every year.

Commercial operation is scheduled for 2029. Norton Rose Fulbright advised JX Nippon Oil & Gas.

The project will take advantage of various US government support measures, including the Inflation Reduction Act and the Department of Energy's Title 17 Clean Energy Financing Programme established to promote clean energy technologies.

Sumitomo, through its subsidiary Sumitomo Corporation of Americas (SCOA), entered into a joint development agreement with Strategic Biofuels on the project in February 2024.

JX, through its subsidiary JX Nippon Oil Exploration USA, and SCOA will jointly establish the Magnolia Sustainable Energy Partners consortium to manage and invest in the project.

JX is an energy exploration and production company and is the only Japanese company that has commercialized carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) technology. The firm is currently operating the Petra Nova CCUS project in Texas, which captures 1.4 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide per year.