BP’s Kwinana biorefinery gets ministerial tick

BP’s $1 billion Kwinana biorefinery has received ministerial approval at the recommendation of the Environmental Protection Authority, subject to a target of net-zero emissions by 2050.

The approval from Environment Minister Reece Whitby comes following EPA endorsement early in January, which recommended the net-zero 2050 target and supported the project’s advancement.

The project, at BP Australia’s mothballed refinery south of Perth, would be capable of turning vegetable oils, animal fats and other biowaste into as many as 10,000 barrels of biofuel and sustainable aviation fuel each day.

The project has been set a scaled emissions limit, which phases to net-zero emissions from July 1, 2050. The approval allows for as many as 531,300 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions over the five-year period between now and June 2030, followed by 410,550 tonnes of emissions in the five years that follow.

The limit scales back to 169,050 tonnes over five years between 2040 and 2045, before dropping to 48,300 tonnes of Co2 equivalent in the half-decade leading up to 2050.

Among the conditions, BP must also implement a greenhouse gas environmental management plan, which details its performance against environmental benchmarks and the ability to measure its performance.

The company will be required to report to report annually on its emissions from the project, along with a consolidated five-year report mapping its progress.  

BP aims to have the biorefinery in production by 2026, and is currently assessing the potential for green hydrogen production at the site.

That plan received a $70 million boost from the federal government in November and would sit alongside the biofuels refinery part of what the company has labelled the Kwinana Energy Hub.

The state government has been supportive of the proposal to bring the refinery back to life as a biofuels facility following the oil refinery’s closure in 2022.

BP has a memorandum of understanding in place with Qantas for output from the biofuel facility and is in discussions with mining companies over supply of renewable fuel.

The company is pushing ahead with five biofuel refineries at sites around the world.