MOU Executed for Fuel Pre-Purchase Agreement

March 26th, 2024

SynSel and Family Hope Ministries have inked a MOU for a Fuel Pre-Purchase Agreement for offtake at the Ontonagon Michigan and Bemidji Minnesota biorefinery sites. The fuel from each plant will be 31-million gallons per year of high-spec transportation fuels: ASTM D4814 (gasoline) and ASTM D975 (diesel). The underlying biomass-to-fuel technology is the process integration of pyrolysis and hydro-conversion – Hydropyrolysis. The fuel product is very stable, storable, and shippable. Michigan Technological University has calculated the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to be a 95% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions compared to fossil crude oil converted to transportation fuel. 

The fuel pre-purchase cash payments will be coordinated between SynSel and Family Hope Ministries such that funds are available for the property, permit, engineering and construction of the Bemidji and Ontonagon biorefineries and a potential 3rd 31-million gallon per year plant in Austin Texas. 

The Ontonagon and Bemidji biorefinery sites are brownfields that will include interim storage and rail shipping capability. The Fuel Pre-Purchase commitment for each plant is equal to the CAPEX of $600MM. The plants take 4 years to complete through permit, engineering and construction. The Family Hope Ministry’s $600MM commitment (payout) through the 4-year deployment cycle are offset by the commodity value of the fuel at $75MM per year per plant. 6 years of fuel production of a plant covers the $600MM investment. 

The CEO of Family Hope Ministries, Jeff Lewis states, “I see this as a win-win. Family Hope Ministries and SynSel source a basic commodity need for our residents – transportation fuel. SynSel achieves funding and creates jobs in distressed rural communities … producing fuel with the greenest process known – greener than fossil fuels and certainly greener that EVs.”

SynSel is near securing biomass intake agreements for the Ontonagon and Bemidji biorefinery sites. Each plant requires 1,000 dry metric tonnes per day of woody biomass. The master plan is to deploy large 1,000 tonne per day plants in distressed rural areas - close to the biomass but to also have the capacity to deploy smaller modular 100 TPD plants in urban areas. This model allows for the use of the fuel at the point of production – essentially eliminating the need for the large central traditional fossil refineries. The 100 TDP plants will transform to a feedstock mix of half woody biomass and sorted community MSW (Municipal Sorted Waste).