Dive Brief:
- Roberto Simon, a 25-year veteran of French bank Société Générale, moved to the top financial seat for eFuels company HIF Global, the company announced in a press release Wednesday.
- Simon served since December 2020 as managing director and co-head of global banking advisory in SocGen’s New York office. Before moving into that role, Simon acted as head of natural resources and infrastructure for the Americas at the French bank. He also previously served as head of project and energy finance.
- Simon started in his new role Monday, he confirmed in an email.
Dive Insight:
Simon “brings extensive expertise from across the entire energy value chain” that will help make its expansion plans a reality, HIF Global wrote in its Wednesday release.
HIF, which stands for “Highly Innovative Fuels,” is working to develop projects that can convert hydrogen into carbon-neutral liquid eFuels, theough low-cost renewable power such as wind.
“eFuels are chemically identical to gasoline, shipping fuel, and jet fuel and therefore can be used by existing cars, ships, and airplanes without any modifications to the engines,” Simon wrote.
The company secured $260 million in equity investments in an April funding round, with investors including Porsche, Baker Hughes and Chilean energy company Andes Mining & Energy. The company cited plans to apply the capital to the development of carbon-neutral eFuels projects in Australia, Chile and the U.S.
The company is expected to build 12 facilities, Simon wrote in an email — six in Chile, three in Australia and three in the U.S. The facilities will produce approximately 150,000 barrels per day of eFuels once completed, according to the company — enough to “decarbonize” approximately 5 million cars on the road today.
“Capital markets are eager to fund decarbonization infrastructure. We intend to project finance our construction costs, with a combination of bank debt and equity,” Simon wrote of the project in an email.
eFuels or biofuels could potentially help cars, planes or other such vehicles cut down on their carbon emissions, but they are jostling for space alongside other environmentally conscious alternatives such as electric vehicles.
Demand for both bio-gasoline and bio-diesel is expected to grow in the short term, but is likely to peak by about 2030, Bloomberg reported in July.
HIF also detailed plans to deploy approximately $50 billion in capital with the goal of constructing and operating facilities for the production of eFuels, it said in Wednesday’s release.
