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Diamond Green Diesel initiates review ahead of proposed expansion

 

Published by
Hydrocarbon Engineering,

Darling Ingredients Inc. and Valero Energy Corporation have announced that, in anticipation of growing demand for renewable diesel due to the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) and global low carbon markets, they will initiate an engineering and construction cost review to analyse an additional project growing annual production capacity to 550 million gallons at the Diamond Green Diesel (DGD) facility in Norco, LA.

The DGD facility is currently undergoing an expansion project that will grow annual production capacity from 160 million gallons of renewable diesel to 275 million gallons. This project is targeted for completion in second quarter 2018.

"Diamond Green Diesel has proven to be a tremendous success and we acknowledge Valero's engineering excellence as the key," said Randall C. Stuewe, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Darling Ingredients Inc. "Our partnership through DGD has created a sustainable and efficient process of converting Darling's feedstocks into high quality biofuels to meet the needs of our customers around the world."

A final decision on the incremental 275 million gallons of annual production capacity is expected in 2018 and will be dependent on further engineering and cost estimates, as well as the status of government regulations. The proposed expansion would utilise existing DGD infrastructure and be built on property owned by Valero. If a decision is made to proceed with the proposed expansion, the new capacity would be available in the first half of 2021.

Current DGD operations are not expected to be impacted if the proposed expansion is built.