Jordan Blum, editorial director, Hart Energy: We are here at CERAWeek 2025. I am joined by Lee Beck, the senior vice president for global policy and commercial strategy with HIF Global. We're talking a lot of things energy transition here. The industry might be two steps forward, one step back, I don't know, but I just wanted to get your thoughts. We're talking about e-fuels facilities. Right now y'all are progressing a big project in this state, in Matagorda County. I wanted to see if you could just elaborate on where things stand and how this is going to fit into everything and the fueling situation.

Lee Beck, senior vice president for global policy and commercial strategy, HIF Global: Yeah, so happy to be here. Really excited. I would say we're always making steps forward. That's the framing with regards to highly innovative fuels. Look, we're super excited about our Matagorda project here in Texas, 1.4 million tons of e-methanol, 4,000 to 5,000 construction jobs, billions of dollars of investment and a globally competitive first-of-a-kind facility. It's really, really exciting and I'm excited to talk to you about it.

JB: Very good. And what's the timeline from here? I know we're still relatively early stages.

LB: Yeah, look, I mean a key puzzle piece that fell into place is the 45V guidance earlier this year. So that works for us and gives us the kind of clarity that we need to further progress. We're working with our partners and we're working toward FID and start on construction hopefully later this year.

JB: Great. That's awesome. So this follows up a big e-fuels project y'all have done in Chile. I wanted to get your take on just kind of how that's progressing as well. Y'all are doing a lot in South America with other countries, Chile, direct air capture as well.

LB: Yeah, absolutely. Super excited. So that is our demonstration facility, right? It is where we produce our product and actually supply that e-gasoline. So it's a fuel that you can drop into any car, to Porsche to use in the Formula One Supercup. And are also, as you said, testing other technologies. So it's really not only showing, wow, this product works, it really exists, but it's also an opportunity for us as an innovator, as a company that really wants to innovate additional energy to contribute to energy security globally where we test technologies and try out new things.

JB: Great. Can I get you to elaborate maybe just a bit on, again, it's still relatively early stages, but how the e-fuels projects will kind of fit into the overall supply chain landscape for global fueling, especially in the Americas, but worldwide.

LB: Yeah, absolutely. Look, I think what's been made really, really clear is that energy demand is growing. It's growing globally, and different regions demand different kinds of fuels. Different industries demand different kinds of fuels, and so the beauty about e-fuels is it is a drop-in fuel, right? So we can drop it into any engine to make e-methanol, you can drop it into methanol vessels, you make e-gasoline. Right now, we also actually supply our e-gasoline to ships for arctic tourism, which I think is super awesome. And then also e-SAF, which is essentially e-jet fuel, so we can drop it into long lift infrastructure.

And so right now we see a lot of opportunity in the shipping sector in particular, there's over 200 methanol dual-fuel vessels already ordered. That really, I think shows the demand outlook where the industry is moving. And then also the market in Europe as well as Japan is really shaping up. And the Japanese are, along with the Europeans, a core partner of ours.

JB: Very good. So you mentioned SAF, I think most people know what that is, but sustainable aviation fuel. I know y'all are working with Airbus and others. Can you talk about how that's progressing?

LB: Yeah, look, I think for Matagorda, we're focusing on e-methanol right now, but e-methanol can be created, synthesized into e-SAF. And so we're really excited about our partnership with Airbus, which could, for example, imply exporting e-methanol and then having a methanol-to-jets fuel synthesizer overseas to create e-SAF. And so we're really looking at this as a future opportunity.

And what I think is really important to know about the aviation sectors, the majority of people have not been on a plane. And as we see economic growth and increasing energy demand, more people will want to travel. And so for the airline industry, what's really, really important is to understand that the future will be a variety of fuels vis-a-vis increasing demand for air travel and also increasing demand for planes. And so, I think if we look at a majority of the analysis, what we see is that e-SAF is important alongside bio-SAF, for example, right? Because there's feedstock limitations to that. And so the pie is only growing bigger, and so we need to supply that additional energy.

JB: Great. So yeah, like you're talking about with crude oil and other hydrocarbons, you're not necessarily talking about displacing for now, but filling, incremental, increasing demand. But how do you see that maybe going long-term even beyond the next few years?

LB: Yeah, I mean, I think energy demand is expected to rise, and from a U.S. perspective, the U.S. has become a world leader and will supply what the world demands, right? It's been oil and gas, but it's also going to be other advanced fuels. And so I think tapping into the resources here and supplying them to the market and yeah, it's definitely additional. I think the share of oil and gas in global primary energy demand has been constant and has been growing with energy demand, but we have energy demand potentially outpacing that. So we need new forms of energy, all of what we can get.

JB: Great. Well, thank you so much again for joining us here at CERAWeek. We really appreciate it. To read and watch more, please visit online at hartenergy.com.

LB: Thank you so much for having me.

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