A new production plant located in China that transforms waste cooking oil from the numerous restaurants and eateries in the city of Ningbo, Zhejiang into jet biofuel will break ground in 2018.

State-owned Zhenhai Refining and Chemical Corporation, a Sinopec subsidiary based in Ningbo, will convert 100,000 metric tons of waste kitchen oil (called gutter oil in China) into 30,000 metric tons of aviation-grade biofuel annually.

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Sinopec or China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation is China's largest oil and gas company.

Zhennai Refining plans to sell the jet fuel to airlines operating long-haul international flights, especially to countries that impose high emissions taxes. It reassured potential customers its new jet fuel is "absolutely safe" for passenger airliners and won't smell like a kitchen.

China has used jet fuel made from gutter oil on an airliner only once before. In March 2015, China reported its first commercial flight using biofuel made from waste cooking oil.

A Hainan Airlines flight from Shanghai to Beijing used biofuel supplied by China National Aviation Fuel Group Corporation and Sinopec. The jet biofuel was a 50-50 mix of conventional jet fuel and biofuel made from waste cooking oil collected from restaurants in China.

Sinopec began plans to build the aviation biofuel plant in 2011 as its answer to a carbon tariff on civil aviation proposed by the European Union. The first sample product was synthesized in a Sinopec laboratory in 2012.

The March 2015 flight "was a one-off and; just for show," said Huang Zhongwen, Zhenhai Refining spokesman.

"The plant, however, means long-term business."

The design of the plant is nearing completion and other is proceeding smoothly and on schedule, said Zhennai Refining

"We have confidence about breaking ground in 2018 ... output will meet the annual demand of certain long-distance flights," said Huang.

Worldwide, over 1,500 commercials flights have used biofuel since 2011 but were all for demonstration purposes. In comparison, over 100,000 daily flights still use conventional jet fossil fuel.