Synthetic Fuels

To enable a major reduction in CO₂ emissions in the transport sector, such as from automobiles and aircraft, moving us towards carbon neutrality, we are working on developing technologies to produce synthetic fuels made from CO₂ and hydrogen that can replace existing petroleum products such as gasoline, jet fuel, diesel, etc.
Synthetic fuels produced from CO₂ captured from industrial exhaust gases and/or the atmosphere and from hydrogen derived from renewable energy sources are carbon-neutral fuels that can suppress the amount of CO₂ emissions throughout the entire product lifecycle. In this way, they can contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions in society.
The ENEOS Group aims for the early establishment of synthetic fuels production technology and their social implementation with the support of the Green Innovation Fund (GI Fund),* which selected this project in April 2022.

• A project whereby the government will support enterprises engaged in management issues towards becoming carbon neutrality by 2050, which Japan has declared as a goal, for a period of ten years, covering from research and development and demonstration to social implementation. It covers energy-related industries including hydrogen and fuel ammonia industries, transport and manufacturing-related industries, and household and office-related industries.

The ENEOS Group is aiming for the early establishment of technologies for our proprietary process for producing synthetic fuels with high efficiency. We are promoting the development of diverse liquid fuel production processes, including for jet fuel and diesel, from renewable energy by utilizing the technologies accumulated by the JAPAN-GTL Consortium,* of which we were a member.

• A consortium established by six companies in October 2006. The participating companies were Japan Petroleum Exploration, Chiyoda Corporation, Cosmo Oil, NIPPON STEEL & SUMIKIN ENGINEERING, Teikoku Oil and INPEX, and Nippon Oil (all company names are as of establishment date). The demonstration operation of 500 barrels per day between 2009 and 2011 was carried out as a joint research project between the Consortium and the Japan Organization for Metals and Energy Security (JOGMEC), establishing GTL technologies that could be used on a commercial scale.

Synthetic fuel production process

The ENEOS Group is working on development in pace with a roadmap of Japanese government towards the commercialization of synthetic fuels. We began scale-up demonstration from FY2022, and from FY2024 we started operation of a demonstration plant in our Central Technical Research Laboratory that can produce 1 barrel per day.
Through research and development and scale-up demonstration, we are moving ahead to establish technology early, with the hope of achieving environmentally friendly synthetic fuel production in the near future.

R&D plan for the synthetic fuel production process