BP Ventures has committed $10 million to the California-based biofuels company WasteFuel, according to a July 6 press release.

WasteFuel plans to deploy anaerobic digestion and methanol production technologies “to convert bio-based municipal and agricultural waste into lower carbon fuels such as bio-methanol,” according to the release.

The company says the process can contribute to decarbonization in hard-to-abate sectors such as the shipping industry. BP aims to establish lower-carbon alternative fuels and will aspire to use its expertise in trading to bring WasteFuel’s bio-methanol to market. BP and WasteFuel have established a memorandum of understanding for BP to offtake the produced bio-methanol and to collaborate on ways to improve and optimize lower carbon fuel production.

“WasteFuel projects will look to help with the growing volumes of global waste, whilst advancing the development of lower carbon solutions for hard-to-abate sectors,” said Gareth Burns, vice president of BP Ventures. “Achieving decarbonization in shipping will require a step-change, and biofuels have a key role to play in helping the industry to decarbonize.”

“This investment from BP Ventures is a significant milestone for WasteFuel as it will help scale the production of bio-methanol to decarbonize the shipping sector,” said Trevor Neilson, co-founder, chairman and CEO of WasteFuel. “As companies who are reliant on shipping work to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, it is essential that we dramatically expand the availability of these fuels.”

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