Australian Qantas, US Solena to team up on jet biofuel plant project - report

(ADPnews) - Jan 3, 2011 - Australian airline Qantas Airways Ltd (ASX:QAN) and US fuel producer Solena will form a joint venture to build a commercial jet biofuel plant in Sydney, a spokesperson from Qantas was quoted saying by The Australian daily.

The joint venture will explore the feasibility to establish an AUD-300-million (USD 306.3m/EUR 230m) plant based on the Fischer-Tropsch process to convert commercial waste to biofuel, the daily wrote today.

"We expect to produce a business case for such a plant within 12 months. While we are still in the early stages of this project, the possibilities are exciting", Qantas spokeswoman Olivia Wirth said.

Wirth said also that Qantas was conducting a "road map" study together with other industry players on the outlook for sustainable aviation fuel development in Australia. She added that the airline is in talks with several firms about specific fuel-producing technologies.

The planned project is expected to be the second one, after the plant of British Airways (LON:BAY), which is currently under construction and is expected to start operation in 2014. The British plant will convert 500,000 tonnes of household, agricultural and industrial waste into 73 million litres of clean jet fuel, enough to power 2% of Heathrow base, according to the daily.

(AUD 1 = USD 1.021/EUR 0.766)

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