Canary Biofuels to ramp up Alberta biodiesel plant to full capacity in September

Canada's Canary Biofuels will ramp up its 20 million gal/year, or 1,300 b/d, biodiesel facility at Lethbridge in southern Alberta to full capacity in September, in line with the plant optimization process, the company's CEO, George Wadsworth, said Aug. 25.

"We have now reached 60% to 70% [of capacity] and the target is to get to full capacity in the fall," Wadsworth told S&P Global Commodity Insights.

Following the ramp-up to full capacity of its Lethbridge plant, the company also has future plans for an expansion, Wadsworth said without stating any timeline.

At present, biodiesel from the Lethbridge plant is sold into the US Midwest and US West Coast markets and is transported in rail cars, Wadsworth said.

Last summer, Canary started up its facility that processes 60,000 MT/year of oil seeds into vegetable oil, which is used as feedstock for the biodiesel production, with a byproduct being animal meal, Wadsworth said.

"As a biofuels company, we process canola and camelina seeds that comes out of the crops," Wadsworth said. "We are focused on sustaining our biodiesel production with agriculture and work closely with the farming community to help them find more value for their products, especially those that are considered waste."

Canary biofuels is integrating agriculture with the production of renewable fuels and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, Wadsworth said

"Working with the farming community, we are developing alternative crops like camelina which did not exist in Canada," he added.

The Lethbridge facility has received a C$4.7 million ($3.4 million) financial backing from the province-owned Emissions Reduction Alberta under the Alberta government's Technology Innovation and Emissions Reduction fund.

Canary Biofuels is making biofuels, along with high-protein and animal feed with no solvents, and their plant is one of a kind in Canada, as it uses a blend of biomass -- canola and animal fats -- using new crops of camelina, Emissions Reduction Alberta's CEO, Justin Riemer, said Aug. 25.

Stockton facility

Besides Lethbridge, Canary is also building a biodiesel facility in Stockton, California, that it targets to "have ...up and running in late 2023," Wadsworth said.

With a capacity of 15 million gal/year, or 1,000 b/d, the facility is under the construction phase. Canary is in the process of raising additional capital to put into that project, Wadsworth said.

The company also has a storage and rack terminal in Stockton that offers blending facility. However, green diesel from the plant will be sold locally, he added.

"North American demand for biofuels will increase over the next 10 to 15 years, as government policies that mandate a reduction of carbon emissions from fossil fuels gets more stringent," Wadswroth said. "When biodiesel is blended with fossil fuels every molecule it replaces it reduces the carbon intensity between 70% to 80%."

In Canada, the Clean Air Fuel Standard that went into effect in 2022 requires refiners and other obligated parties to reduce its annual increments of carbon intensity levels in liquid transportation fuels from 2016 levels, Wadsworth said.

Saskatchewan project

A biodiesel plant is also planned in Saskatchewan, with the Canadian government announcing a C$10 million funding to BioLesna Carbon Technologies in early July for a grassroot biorefinery at Carrot River in the province.

The refinery will convert biomass from forest operations to produce four initial products -- biochar, bio-oil, wood vinegar and pyrolysis gas -- the federal government announcement said, adding these materials can then be further refined into value-added products such as soil additives, filtration media, electrodes and specialty chemicals.

Based on the project's ability to substitute products derived from non-renewable sources and the carbon sequestration capacity of the biochar produced, carbon removal credits may also be generated, the government said without stating the capacity of the planned biorefinery.