Xebec wins €33 million contract for biogas upgrading facilities

Xebec Adsorption, a global provider of gas purification solutions for the industrial, energy and renewables marketplace, announced on 16 May that has it signed an exclusive market development and commercialisation agreement with Sapio Group. Under this agreement, Sapio is entering into a minimum purchase order commitment for multiple Xebec biogas upgrading plants for a total value of €33 million to be delivered over three years.

Sapio Group is an Italian industrial gas company in with over 1,800 employees and revenues of around €500 million. Its business includes the production and distribution of bio-liquefied natural gas (bio-LNG) throughout Italy. After a supplier evaluation process, Sapio chose Xebec as its biogas upgrading partner for bio-LNG facilities to be built by Sapio.

The expectation of both parties is that 30 to 40 bio-LNG facilities will be built over the next three to five years. Xebec will provide the biogas upgrading units, including a CO2 reduction module that will lower the CO2 content in the product gas down to 50 ppm (parts per million), allowing for on-site liquefaction of the renewable natural gas (RNG) and conversion into bioLNG.

In March the European Commission under EU State aid rules approved a €4.7 billion Italian support scheme for the production and distribution of advanced biofuels, including advanced biomethane.

President of Xebec Kurt Sorschak said in a statement: “We are very excited about our opportunities in Italy. According to the information available to us, we believe that Italy will emerge as the largest biogas upgrading market in the world over the next three to five years. We have an outstanding partner in Sapio who will work diligently on broadening their own bio-LNG projects and, along with our collaboration to commercialise Xebec’s biogas upgrading systems to third parties, we expect to gain significant market share overall. This strategic alliance with Sapio could allow us to become one of the market leaders for biogas upgrading in Italy.”