Infinium Breaks Ground on World’s Largest efuels Plant Near Pecos

Once the site of an airfield that trained pilots during World War II, Pecos is now home to a new plant producing sustainable aviation fuel.

Infinium, a leading producer of commercially available eFuels, has begun construction of Project Roadrunner in Reeves County, near Pecos. Once in operation in 2027, it is expected to become the world’s largest eFuels production facility, producing 23,000 tonnes per year — 7.6 million gallons — of sustainable aviation fuel and other eFuel products for customers including global aviation leaders American Airlines and IAG, owner of British Airways, Aer Lingus and other international airline brands.

eFuels are synthetic fuels produced from waste carbon dioxide and renewable energy that are chemically identical to conventional petroleum-based fuels.

>> In Other News: Verde and C-Twelve Forge 10-Year Exclusive Partnership to Redefine the Roads of the Future

Robert Schuetzle, Infinium chief executive officer
"We do use waste CO2 as an input and have a great partner in Kinetik Holdings."

Project Roadrunner will also provide revenue streams for its oil and gas partners by turning CO2 into a commodity.

He noted the company has built facilities in West Texas before and found it to be a great experience with a great labor market. Reeves County has also been business-friendly, he added.

The project will create a number of jobs in West Texas. Schuetzle said it will create many construction jobs and jobs for its contractors. Long-term, it will create jobs in operations, maintenance, logistics and field management.

Currently under construction, Roadrunner has secured 150 megawatts of new wind generation capacity from a subsidiary of NextEra Energy Resources through a long-term power purchase agreement. Schuetzle said Infinium also has the ability to tap into the electric grid so the plant can run 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Infinium selected electrolyzer manufacturer Electric Hydrogen to supply its complete 100-megawatt HYPRPlant solution for the project, which will be integrated on site for green hydrogen production. This large-scale system will not only produce hydrogen for the eSAF facility, but will also have the capacity to support future hydrogen offtake opportunities. Electric Hydrogen’s proprietary electrochemical stacks are built at its Massachusetts gigafactory while the chemical process modules are manufactured in Texas.

Raffi Garabedian, Electric Hydrogen’s chief executive officer and co-founder
"This cutting-edge project exemplifies how low-cost, industrial-scale clean hydrogen production will drive new markets for American-made fuels and support the buildout of domestic manufacturing facilities."

A majority of the sustainable aviation fuel that will be produced will be exported, said Schuetzle.

"I see us being similar to the way liquefied natural gas grew — an abundant U.S. resource that generates fuel and exports it," he said.

Project Roadrunner will produce aviation fuel eDiesel, which Amazon uses in its long-haul trucking fleets, as well as eNaptha that will be shipped to Europe for use in plastics manufacturing.

It is the company’s second Texas facility. In 2023, Infinium became the world’s first to produce and ship commercial volumes of eFuels to customers in the U.S. and Europe from its production facility, Project Pathfinder, in Corpus Christi. Schuetzle said the company is looking at other Texas sites.