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In Colon, progress continues on the development of the largest planned advanced biorefinery in the world, which will position Panama as a global leader in green energy. This week, SGP BioEnergy announced the addition of green hydrogen production to the facility, named Biorefineria Ciudad Dorada (Golden City Biorefinery), which the company says is on schedule to open in 2026. 

The refinery plans to refine 180,000 barrels a day of biofuels, including sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), which will play a huge role as the airline industry decarbonizes. We wrote about this facility in May, when SGP first announced their plans to team with Topsoe Sustainable Aviation Fuel to develop the plant, which will also refine renewable marine diesel.

The refinery will produce 405,000 metric tons of green hydrogen annually, which will allow the plant to operate at net zero emissions, the company said in a press release. The plant will use Topsoe technologies to produce green hydrogen from the waste carbon and renewable fuels by-products produced during the refining process. The company says the facility will have “the lowest carbon footprint of any biofuel refinery in the world.”

“This facility is truly a model of the future of the energy transition,” said Randy Delbert Letang, CEO of SGP BioEnergy. “We will not only produce the fuel that will decarbonize transportation but do so in a way that is also decarbonizing the manufacturing process itself. It is the first time both advanced biofuels and green hydrogen will be produced together at this scale, and we are excited to be bringing this innovation to Panama.”

As we noted in our earlier coverage, this project is a natural fit for Panama, given its status as the logistics hub of the region and its focus on the environment. Panama is poised to be the center for the next generation of energy production, which will provide another foundation for jobs, wealth creation, and property buyers and renters.

“The existing Panama free zones offer a unique opportunity to develop a scalable, logistically superior, and flexible way of collecting, processing, and distributing sustainable biomass feedstocks into renewable products,” SGP said in its release. “It also provides a global platform to transport the fuels all over the world to customers committed to decarbonizing their operations.”

All land rights for the project have been secured with a groundbreaking for physical construction planned for 2023, with the facility scheduled for completion in 2026, the company said.