Sungas halts development of $2 billion Louisiana bioenergy project
In India, BioEnergy Times reported that SunGas Renewables has decided to halt development of its proposed bioenergy and low-carbon methanol project in Louisiana, citing market, regulatory and financing conditions that have slowed progress on the large-scale investment.
The project, known as Beaver Lake Biofuels, was being developed through Beaver Lake Renewable Energy, a company formed by SunGas in 2023 to build a wood-to-methanol biorefinery in Rapides Parish in central Louisiana.
Planned with an estimated investment of $2 billion, the facility was proposed for the site of the former International Paper facility and had been expected to begin operations as early as 2028, according to the report.
The project was designed to combine three SunGas S1000 syngas production systems with downstream processing technologies to produce approximately 553,000 metric tons of low-carbon methanol annually. It also aimed to capture and store around 1.1 million metric tons of biogenic carbon dioxide each year, it added.
SunGas had moved the project into the front-end engineering design (FEED) phase in May 2025 and expected construction to start in the second half of 2026 following a final investment decision.
However, the company announced that development of the Beaver Lake Biofuels facility would not move forward under current conditions.
According to SunGas, the decision was influenced by slower-than-expected adoption of low-carbon marine fuels, especially low-carbon methanol, uncertainty surrounding the project’s carbon capture and storage pathway, and limited visibility on regulatory support and financing conditions required for a project of this scale.
Category: Fuels
