XFuel wins €4.1 million grant for low-carbon fuel plant in Catalonia

XFuel on May 27 won a €4.1 million grant from Catalonia’s Nuclear Transition Fund, a state-backed push that moves the company’s waste-oil marine fuel plan closer to bankable infrastructure in northeastern Spain. The award, administered by Acció, ties the project to the industrial replacement effort around the planned closures of the Ascó and Vandellòs nuclear plants, not just to fuel decarbonisation.

The proposed facility is designed to process 16,000 tonnes of marine waste oils a year into 14,000 tonnes of low-carbon marine gas oil. That output is aimed squarely at shipping, where buyers need drop-in fuel that works in existing engines and bunkering systems. XFuel said the plant will be modular, a design that can reduce execution risk and make future replication easier if the first unit proves feedstock economics, permitting and offtake.

The location also matters. XFuel said the plant will sit close to the ports of Tarragona, Barcelona, Sagunto and Valencia, giving it access to marine feedstock logistics and product distribution across a dense Mediterranean corridor. The company has said its technology suite includes Chemical Liquid Refining, which refines impure hydrocarbon liquids into drop-in transport fuels, and Mechanical Carbon Conversion, which co-processes waste solid biomass and waste oils into transport fuels and biochar. XFuel has also said its fuels and processes have earned International Sustainability and Carbon Certification under both ISCC EU and ISCC Plus, a signal that supply-chain traceability and greenhouse-gas savings can be documented for buyers and regulators.

The grant also has a labor angle. XFuel said the project is expected to create 35 jobs, a small but visible number in communities facing the loss of nuclear-linked industrial activity. Catalonia’s Nuclear Transition Funds distributed €52.5 million in 2025 to 183 companies in the Ebro-region areas affected by the closures, with the program aimed at creating 130 jobs. The new award suggests the Generalitat de Catalunya is still willing to use that tool to back projects that combine circular-economy feedstocks, port-adjacent logistics and maritime decarbonisation.

Ascó, in Tarragona province, sits at the center of that transition story. Spain’s current phase-out plan still points to reactor closures between 2027 and 2035, leaving regional governments under pressure to replace high-value industrial activity with projects that can hold workers, capital and infrastructure in place. For XFuel, the Catalonia grant pushes the company from technology promise toward physical supply. For the shipping market, it is another test of whether waste oils can move from pilot rhetoric to repeatable marine fuel capacity.