France's First Structured Carbon-to-Fuel Chain Takes Shape at Marseille

H4 Marseille Fos, an e-SAF project developed jointly by Hy2gen France and H2V, has signed a strategic partnership with the Rhône Décarbonation project, securing 50% of the biogenic CO2 needed for its planned e-SAF facility over the long term. The partners describe the agreement as establishing France's first structured carbon capture and utilisation (CCU) value chain.

How the CO2 Actually Gets From a Cement Plant to a Jet Fuel Plant

Rhône Décarbonation, developed by Vicat, SPSE and Elengy, will capture biogenic CO2 from Vicat's cement plant at Montalieu-Vercieu in eastern France, using established capture technology to collect up to 1.2 million tonnes of CO2 annually. That CO2 travels via SPSE's existing pipeline infrastructure to the H4 Marseille Fos site at Fos-sur-Mer, where it becomes half the carbon feedstock for producing methanol, which is then converted into e-SAF using methanol-to-jet technology. The chain, capture, pipeline transport, and conversion into aviation fuel, is what the "structured" framing refers to: an established, repeatable logistics path rather than a one-off supply arrangement.

Why Biogenic Specifically, Not Just Any Captured CO2

Under EU rules, e-SAF only counts toward ReFuelEU Aviation's mandated quotas if its carbon comes from a genuinely sustainable, biogenic source, alongside hydrogen produced from renewable or low-carbon electricity. Cement production is a real, large-scale source of biogenic CO2 (from the decarbonation of limestone, a natural part of the cement-making process), which makes a cement plant a credible, at-scale biogenic CO2 source in a way that fossil-derived CO2 would not be for regulatory compliance purposes.

The Third of Three Milestones in Quick Succession

This CO2 supply agreement follows two other H4 Marseille Fos partnership announcements within the same month: a 16 July agreement with EDF securing the majority of the project's power supply, including a 10-year nuclear power allocation contract described as the first EDF has signed with a hydrogen and synthetic fuel producer, and continued progress toward the plant's targeted 2028 final investment decision. Taken together, power, carbon feedstock and conversion technology have each been separately locked in within weeks of one another, addressing three of the major cost and supply-risk components a project like this needs resolved before reaching FID, rather than the project announcing all three simultaneously as a single package.

What the Project Still Needs to Clear

H4 Marseille Fos targets a 2028 final investment decision and 2032 start of production, aiming for approximately 75,000 tonnes of e-SAF annually with a claimed 84% greenhouse gas reduction against fossil jet fuel. Securing long-term power and carbon feedstock agreements addresses two of the harder inputs to lock down for a first-of-a-kind e-SAF project, but FID itself, and the financing decision that comes with it, remains a separate, still-pending step.

Source: Storage Terminals, 29 July 2026.