Exclus­ive in France: Butagaz and Glob­al Bioen­er­gies present the first bottles of bio-sourced gas

The sup­ply of this bio-sourced gas, which will be dis­trib­uted for the first time in France in an Inter­marché point of sale, is a first and decis­ive step towards fur­ther­ing the aim of con­trib­ut­ing to meet­ing France’s green­house gas emis­sions reduc­tion tar­get by driv­ing innov­a­tion. Incor­por­at­ing bio-isob­utene in Butagaz’s butane and pro­pane gas bottles reduces CO2 emis­sions by up to 40%* over the entire life cycle of the bottled gas. Butagaz, a lead­ing French multi-energy com­pany, dis­trib­utes nat­ur­al gas, elec­tri­city, wood pel­lets, as well as — nat­ur­ally — pro­pane and butane gas (these gases are amongst the clean­est forms of fossil fuel**). To achieve its aim of redu­cing the car­bon foot­print of its pro­pane and butane value chains even fur­ther, the Butagaz group signed an exclus­ive part­ner­ship deal in France with Glob­al Bioen­er­gies (see press release dated 16 Janu­ary 2017), a pion­eer­ing French com­pany devel­op­ing a pro­cess to con­vert renew­able resources, such as sug­ar beet, into hydro­car­bons through fer­ment­a­tion. Butagaz is con­trib­ut­ing fin­an­cially to Glob­al Bioen­er­gies’ indus­tri­al devel­op­ment in return for reserved batches of bio-isob­utene, whose phys­ic­al and chem­ic­al prop­er­ties are close to those of butane and pro­pane. Less than one year old, the part­ner­ship has already yiel­ded its ini­tial fruits with the first gas bottles con­tain­ing between 10 and 15% bio-isob­utene. A remark­able first! These batches of bio-isob­utene were pro­duced by Glob­al Bioen­er­gies’ demo plant at Leuna in Ger­many. A first in our innov­a­tion drive to help meet nation­al goals  ​“A few months ago we reached a major mile­stone in our multi-energy diver­si­fic­a­tion strategy by dis­trib­ut­ing nat­ur­al gas, elec­tri­city and wood pel­lets to indi­vidu­al house­holds. I had said that this was only the begin­ning. I feel a great sense of pride today in intro­du­cing an innov­a­tion that com­bines cut­ting-edge tech­no­lo­gies and our long-stand­ing expert­ise. This exclus­ive offer of bio-sourced gas can sig­ni­fic­antly reduce CO2 emis­sions through­out the gas life cycle, from pro­duc­tion through to sale”, explained Emmanuel Triv­in, Chair­man of Butagaz. ​“This is a new and stra­tegic step towards achiev­ing our joint aim of offer­ing a choice of energy solu­tions to French con­sumers in the future to help them fur­ther reduce their car­bon foot­print. With our demo plant oper­a­tion­al, we can now reach con­sumers dir­ectly for the first time. This latest devel­op­ment is anoth­er step for­ward in build­ing up the com­mer­cial eco­sys­tem of IBN-One, our future first full-scale plant”, said Marc Del­court, CEO of Glob­al Bioen­er­gies. This break­through is only the begin­ning. In the long term, Butagaz will have the poten­tial to pur­chase large quant­it­ies of ​“made in France” bio-isob­utene when the first Glob­al Bioen­er­gies’ plant comes on stream at a sug­ar pro­du­cer Cristal Uni­on’s site in Cham­pagne. This bio-isob­utene can then be incor­por­ated in Butagaz’s bottles or tanks of butane and pro­pane, gen­er­at­ing CO2 sav­ings of up to 40%* on a large scale through­out the gas life cycle. Butagaz and Glob­al Bioen­er­gies extend their sin­cere grat­it­ude to Inter­marché which joined the part­ner­ship to sup­ply the first bottles con­tain­ing the bio-sourced gas at its Ben­feld point-of-sale in Alsace. *Dur­ing the com­mer­cial pro­duc­tion stage, accord­ing to the Life Cycle Assess­ment con­duc­ted by EVEA, cur­rently under crit­ic­al review (report due in the first half of 2018)) ** — Atmo­spher­ic emis­sions from bio­mass com­bus­tion, French Envir­on­ment and Energy Man­age­ment Agency, ADEME, 19 July 2007 Quelle: Glob­al Bioen­er­gies and Butagaz, press release, 23.01.2019