NEXTCHEM has been selected to provide technology licensing, a Process Design Package, and engineering services for the syngas section of Project Lion, a proposed sustainable aviation fuel development in North Queensland. The plant is intended to convert locally available sugarcane residues into chemical-grade synthesis gas for subsequent production of sustainable aviation fuel and renewable diesel.
The award has been made through NEXTCHEM subsidiary MyRechemical by SKY Renewables Burdekin. Most of the scope remains subject to a Notice to Proceed, although certain engineering activities can begin earlier. The development has therefore reached a technology-selection and process-design stage rather than a final construction commitment.
Project Lion is planned for Queensland’s Burdekin region, where sugarcane cultivation produces substantial volumes of tops, leaves, and other agricultural residues. NEXTCHEM’s scope centres on its NX Circular gasification technology, which will convert the prepared biomass into purified chemical-grade syngas. Separate third-party technologies will then convert that intermediate into sustainable aviation fuel and renewable diesel.
At full operational scale, the developer is targeting potential SAF output of up to 125,000 tonnes a year. That figure is a design ambition rather than installed capacity, and the project still has to move through further engineering, financing, procurement, construction, commissioning, and feedstock contracting before commercial fuel can be produced.
The front end of the process is where much of the engineering difficulty sits. Agricultural residues do not arrive with the consistency expected by downstream chemical equipment. Moisture, ash, particle size, contamination, and composition can vary, while seasonal harvesting affects when material is collected and how long it has to be stored.
Gasification converts that heterogeneous feed into a gaseous intermediate that can be cleaned and conditioned. NEXTCHEM’s NX Circular process uses high-temperature gasification and subsequent purification to produce chemical-grade syngas, principally a controlled mixture containing carbon monoxide and hydrogen. The downstream fuel process can then work with a more consistent chemical feed than untreated biomass could provide.
Gas clean-up is critical because raw biomass-derived gas can contain particulates, tars, sulphur compounds, chlorine species, and other contaminants depending on feedstock and operating conditions. Catalytic fuel-synthesis processes generally tolerate far narrower contaminant levels, making purification part of the core process design rather than a secondary environmental treatment stage.
The Burdekin location is intended to place the plant close to its sugarcane residue supply, but proximity does not remove the logistics problem. A facility designed for 125,000 tonnes of annual SAF output would need a substantial and dependable biomass collection system, with residues gathered, prepared, transported, stored, and blended to maintain plant availability. Bulky feedstocks can rapidly lose their economic advantage if transport distances or storage losses become excessive.
The Process Design Package should give the developer a firmer basis for resolving those interfaces. Equipment sizing, utilities, gas-cleaning duty, feed preparation, control philosophy, plot requirements, and connections to downstream fuel technology can be developed in greater detail once the process basis is fixed. Those outputs are also important for more credible capital-cost estimates and financing discussions.
Project Lion adds Australia to a wider set of NEXTCHEM biomass-to-syngas developments. In June, the company signed a licensing agreement for a Canadian project intended to convert forest residues into purified syngas for subsequent SAF production, with a potential expansion of scope after final investment approval. It has also carried out engineering work around a proposed SAF plant at Immingham in the UK using NX Circular in combination with other process technology.
Those references show the role NEXTCHEM is trying to establish in the SAF chain. It is not supplying every stage of fuel production under one proprietary process; NX Circular produces the syngas intermediate that can feed separate conversion technology. Commercial performance therefore depends on whether the gasification section can tolerate variable residual feedstocks while delivering gas with the consistency and purity demanded downstream.
The distinction is important in a market full of announced SAF capacity. Technology licensing and process design are necessary stages, but they do not guarantee financing, feedstock contracts, product offtake, or final investment approval. NEXTCHEM has explicitly stated that most of the Australian award remains conditional on SKY Renewables Burdekin issuing a Notice to Proceed.
If that notice follows, Project Lion would move from a defined process concept into active engineering execution. The 125,000-tonne annual SAF figure would still remain several commissioning steps away, but the project would have cleared a more meaningful commercial threshold than another headline capacity target.
For now, the award gives the Australian development a selected gasification route, a process-design package, and an engineering supplier with several related SAF projects. The next useful milestone is not another estimate of future output but the Notice to Proceed that turns most of the current scope into contracted project work.
