Norton Rose Fulbright cross-border team advises JX on sustainable aviation fuel project

A cross-border team from Norton Rose Fulbright recently advised JX Nippon Oil & Gas Exploration Corporation (JX) on its agreement with Sumitomo Corporation of Americas (SCOA) to manage investment in a sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) production project at the Port of Columbia in Caldwell Parish, Louisiana.

The project, referred to as Louisiana Green Fuels, converts woody biomass waste into SAF (and renewable Naphtha as a byproduct). The project is coupled with an onsite carbon capture and storage (CCS) facility, which addresses the project’s carbon emissions. These methods allow for the SAF produced by the project not to be merely carbon neutral but to be carbon negative: the equivalent of removing nearly 300,000 passenger cars from the road every year.

With a production capacity of 32 million gallons per year, the project will contribute to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions globally. The project is scheduled to begin commercial operation in 2029.

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

Norton Rose Fulbright’s cross-border team operated from the US and Australia, utilizing a broad spectrum of capabilities and experience from a global team of lawyers and allowing for a 24/7 service delivery on the project.

The deal team was led by Shamim Razavi (Sydney) and Luke Edney (Austin) and also included Hilary Lefko (Washington, DC), Ryan Waggoner (New York), Ammad Waheed, Erin Mitchell (Houston) and Bill Lo (Sydney).