Within few years, we have witnessed large steps towards the commercialization of the BTL-FT process. There are several companies active in technology development and commercialization of individual steps in the BTL-FT process sequence. A number of companies have large-scale biomass gasification technologies including Conoco Phillips, Siemens, VTT, TPS, CHOREN, Lurgi, Shell, GE, Kellogg Brown and Root, Prenflo, Advantica BGL, Noell, Winkler and KRW (E4tech, 2008). Additionally, there are companies focusing on the production of fuels from syngas, such as Sasol, Shell, JFE Holdings in Japan (slurry bed FT reactor producing dimethyl ether (DME)), Fuel Frontiers Inc. (ethanol from syngas) and Syntroleum (focus so far on CTL and GTL) (E4tech, 2008).

Very few companies, however, are active in the whole BTL process chain. The most important player in the BTL market is CHOREN, a German-based technology company. With its Carbo-V patented biomass gasification process for converting biomass to syngas, the company partnered with Shell and Volkswagen to construct the first commercial BTL plant in the world based on the Carbo-V gasification process and the Shell SMDS FT process. The CHOREN beta demonstration plant in Freiberg, Germany, has been operating since 2005, with a capacity of 45 MW thermal and 15 000 tons of BTL fuel per year. CHOREN is currently constructing the first commercial BTL plant in Schwedt, Germany, with a capacity of 640 MW thermal and 200 000 tons of BTL fuel per year using these technologies, with fuel production scheduled to start in 2012 (Rudloff, 2005).

The efforts of CHOREN for commercialization of the BTL process are complimented by substantial research activities. CHOREN is participating in the OPTIFUEL demonstration project, a 42-month project funded by the EU with 7.8 million Euros within the 7th Framework Program for Research and Technological Development. The project kicked off in February 2010 and is expected to establish the technical basis for the large-scale production of BTL-FT fuels with a consortium comprising besides CHOREN, the automotive companies Ford, Renault and Volkswagen, CONCAWE, representing the European mineral oil industry, Invensys Process Systems as simulation technology provider, research institutes IFP (France), CERTH (Greece), IIT Delhi (India) and the German project consultant SYNCOM. Performance data from the CHOREN Freiberg demonstration plant will be modelled to identify improvement opportunities compared to the current production processes and to create the technical basis for large-scale BTL production facilities. Using BTL products manufactured in the Freiberg plant, the automotive manufacturers and oil industry will work together to blend the BTL liquids, evaluate their exhaust emissions and explore their potential in current and future engine technologies. In addition, the economic aspects and the potential to reduce energy and greenhouse emissions from all parts of the BTL production process will be evaluated. (OPTIFUEL, 2009).