Three leaders in their respective industries announce a collaboration to test a clean, innovative low carbon fuel blend in residential and commercial applications in Latin America. The collaboration includes Suburban Propane Partners, L.P, Empresas Lipigas and Oberon Fuels. The parties aim to evaluate and validate the material compatibility, safety and performance attributes of a rDME+LPG blended product for use in residential and commercial heating and cooking applications in Latin America.

Dimethyl ether has been used for decades as an environmentally safe, non-toxic aerosol propellant. Renewable DME has similar properties to LPG making it an excellent blending agent with LPG. The rDME+LPG blend can be stored and transported using existing LPG infrastructure and can be used in many applications including transportation, cooking, heating, forklifts, and power generation.

When made by the Oberon process, the California Air Resources Board has calculated that dairy biogas-based rDME has an estimated carbon intensity (CI) value of -278. Even in low volumes, rDME can dramatically reduce the CI of LPG blends. Lipigas will manage the testing plans and protocols including: rDME+LPG blend percentage, appliance specifications, testing timeframes, and applications in which the rDME+LPG blended product will be used.

Suburban Propane, which early on saw the potential for rDME and is the first LPG company in the world to invest in rDME production, is facilitating project logistics and participating in data analysis. Oberon Fuels will provide the rDME, produced from its production facility in Brawley, California, and domain expertise to the project based on more than a decade of production, market and regulatory development activities.