Vice President biofuels value chain, BP Europe SE

Niels Anspach is responsible for today’s end-to-end biofuels business in bp’s Supply, Trading & Shipping group. He is driving bp’s biofuels strategy, regulatory position development and associated financial delivery on a global scale, with focus on Europe and the Americas.

He has more than 20 years of industry experience and has worked across the value chain from retail to supply and trading in various roles. Prior to his current role, he managed bp’s supply business in Northwest Europe and has worked for more than 10 years in commercial leadership roles in bp.

Niels Anspach holds a diploma as an industrial engineer from Nordakademie Hochschule der Wirtschaft, Elmshorn in Germany.

Lorena Arimón is the Business Development Manager at AESA, an engineering company based in Barcelona and specialized in energy projects (cogeneration, biomass and biogas). She has worked in the fields of environmental technology and environmental consulting in Germany, Canada and Spain. Her experience with biogas has led her to explore the possibilities of biomethane as advanced biofuel in Germany. Her focus has been the biomethane potential of the RED III Annex IX-A feedstocks in Germany and the identification of the opportunities and challenges of biomethane as advanced biofuel.

She holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Environmental Sciences and a Master’s Degree in Environmental Engineering and Management.

Sean Bartlett has over a decade of price reporting and journalism experience encompassing physical biofuels and certificates markets, gasoline components, grains and sugar. Prior to Quantum, Sean was most recently at Census/Fastmarkets and for 9 years prior to that worked at S&P Global Platts where he headed up the agriculture editorial team in London.

Dr. Tobias Block is an industrial engineer and senior consultant public affairs, strategy and communication. As chief strategy officer he coordinates the activities of the eFuel Alliance e.V., a platform with more than 160 member companies for the market ramp-up of hydrogen-derived synthetic fuels. After studying energy and environmental management at the University of Flensburg he obtained his doctorate on hydrogen and eFuels business models at the University of St. Gallen. Following his studies, he worked for more than five years in the technical development department of AUDI AG, including on the commissioning of the first industrial power-to-gas plant. He joined the German Association of the Automotive Industry (Verband der Automobilindustrie e.V.) in the summer of 2018 and coordinated the political activities related to renewable fuels for more than two years. In February 2021 he joined the consultancy von Beust & Collegen, who is running the eFuel Alliance.

04/2024 - present: Project Manager for the project "TrAkzeptanz", funded by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture (BMEL), at the Department of Marketing and Management of Renewable Resources at University of Applied Sciences Weihenstephan-Triesdorf (HSWT), TUM Campus Straubing

03/2022 – present: PhD student and research associate at the Department of Marketing and Management of Renewable Resources at TUM Campus Straubing. Dissertation topic: "Societal acceptance of green hydrogen production in Germany"

10/2019 – 09/2021: Master's program in Agricultural Systems Science (M.Sc.) at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) in Freising

10/2015 – 04/2019: Bachelor's program in Agricultural Marketing and Management (B.Eng.) at University of Applied Sciences Weihenstephan-Triesdorf (HSWT) in Freising

Claire Couet is a seasoned expert in EU public affairs, with over 12 years of experience in campaigning and advocacy about energy, climate, and environmental policies.

In July 2023, Claire joined SGS as Business Development and EU External Relations Manager for its market intelligence service on energy in transport, SGS INSPIRE.

Prior to her role at SGS, Claire served as Policy Director at SolarPower Europe and Public Affairs & Communications Director at Cepi, the European paper industry association. She also worked as a Policy Advisor for the European electricity sector EURELECTRIC.

Claire holds a Master’s Degree in Political Science and International Relations from Sciences Po Aix-en-Provence in France, along with a postgraduate certification in people management.

Roger Cracknell has a PhD in Chemistry from Imperial College London. He joined Shell in 1994 and has the role of Senior Principal Science Expert.

Roger is a Fellow of the Society of Automotive Engineers, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, a Fellow of the Combustion Institute, and a Visiting Professor of Mechanical Engineering at both the University of Leeds and Queen Mary University of London. He is a member of the Powertrain Systems and Fuel Boards of the Institute of Mechanical Engineering and has just completed a term as a member of the International Board of Directors of the Combustion Institute.

He has authored approximately 200 refereed journal and conference papers and has thirteen granted patents.

Dr.-Ing. Ralph-Uwe Dietrich leads the research area Techno Economic Assessment(TEA)at the Institute of Engineering Thermodynamics at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Stuttgartsince 2015. He is responsible for the research group on techno economic and ecologic evaluation of alternative fuels for aviation and global transport. He received his PhD in Engineering at the Technical University Clausthal in 2013 as a scientific associateat the Clausthaler Umwelttechnik Institute (CUTEC-Institut GmbH). Before that, he got 15 years of project manager experience at different enterprises (SME and Fortune 500) of the process and automation industry.

Niels Dögnitz holds a Master of Science in Industrial Engineering - Energy Technology and has been working at the German Biomass Research Center since 2019. His field of research includes the balancing of current and future biorefinery products. In this context, he is responsible for cost calculations and the development of approaches to optimize the economic design of sustainable business concepts. At the DBFZ, he is currently investigating sustainable biokerosene production, evaluating biogenic plastics and driving forward the networking of all players in the field of sustainable energy sources in transport.

Nik Pais dos Santos is Senior Reporter at Argus Media Germany covering the road fuel market. He has developed expertise in the German biofuels market, including HVO and biomethane. Additionally, he is responsible for the assessment and coverage of the German greenhouse gas tickets, enabling him to calculate and analyse all price components in the fuel market effectively.

Nik Pais dos Santos holds a Master of Arts in Philosophy and a Bachelor of Arts in Chemistry and Philosophy.

I am Marcel Dossow and a research associate and PhD candidate at the Chair of Energy Systems ("LES", Prof. Spliethoff) at the Technical University of Munich (TUM). I graduated from RWTH Aachen University in 2018 with a B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering with a specialization in Process Engineering and completed my M.Sc. in Energy and Process Engineering at TUM in 2020.

I wrote my master's thesis on "Simulation and comparison of different synthesis routes for the production of sustainable aviation fuels - a power-and-biomass-to-liquid (PBtL) approach" at LES in 2020. As part of the master's thesis and subsequent work, I modeled a PBtL process to combine biomass residue gasification and green hydrogen addition to produce sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) and investigated different process configurations in terms of carbon efficiency and hydrogen demand. Since March 2021, I have been working at the LES as a research associate to further explore biomass-to-liquid, power-to-liquid, and combinations of the two process routes. In particular, biomass entrained flow gasification in combination with the integration of renewable electricity and the following fuel synthesis are simulatively investigated on a process level.

John Cosmo Dwelle is Head of Operations and Business Development at Landwärme, one of Europe's leading biomethane supply companies based in Munich. Landwärme stands out as a leading player in the German and European market not only by specializing in trading biomethane and other renewable gases, but also by taking a proactive approach to the development and operation of biogas upgrading plants, incorporating innovative CCUS technology. The company also offers comprehensive services along the entire biomethane value chain, consolidating its position as one of the leading biomethane suppliers in Europe.

Before taking on various positions at Landwärme, John Cosmo Dwelle honed his expertise by working with renowned organizations, including the law firm Peters, Schönberger & Partner and Siemens France SAS. Dwelle's background is characterized by a solid university education with a Legum Baccalaureus and a Master's degree in sustainable resource management from the Technical University of Munich. He also has several years of interdisciplinary experience in the field of renewable energies.

Professional career:
• Vocational training as a tiled stove and air heating engineer
• Studied environmental engineering at the Amberg-Weiden University of Applied Sciences
• Doctorate at the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg on the subject of ‘Ignition, combustion and emission behaviour of various vegetable oils’
• Since 2006 at the Technology and Support Centre, Straubing

Current areas of responsibility in the Renewable Fuels and Materials department:
• Head of technical centre and laboratories at TFZ
• Operating and emission behaviour of tractors with alternative fuels
• Standardisation of rapeseed oil and pure plant oil fuel - Chairman of the standardisation subcommittee at DIN for this standards

Professional career

since 10/2012
Technology and Promotion Center at the Competence Center for Renewable Resources (TFZ); Department: Renewable fuels and materials
Activities: Head of test benches as well as research on regenerative drives.

University education

11/2013 - 05/2021 Technical University of Munich (TUM)
Doctorate on the topic of "Real exhaust emission behavior
of tractors on the test bench and in the field", degree: Doctor of Agricultural Sciences (Dr. agr.)

10/2010 - 09/2012 Technical University of Munich (TUM) at the Straubing site
Course of studies: Renewable raw materials, Degree: Master of Science (M. Sc.)

09/2006 - 10/2010
Weihenstephan-Triesdorf University of Applied Sciences
Course of studies: Agriculture, Degree: Diplom-Ingenieur (FH)

Christoph Falter is Head of Strategy at Synhelion. Synhelion is a Swiss cleantech company that uses solar energy to produce renewable solar fuels to decarbonize transportation. The fuels produced by Synhelion – such as solar kerosene, gasoline, or diesel – can directly replace fossil fuels as they are fully compatible with existing global infrastructure. With its solar fuel technology, Synhelion offers a sustainable and economically viable alternative to fossil fuels and unlocks a clean future of transportation.

Christoph received his PhD in Mechanical Engineering from RWTH Aachen in 2017. He has more than ten years of experience in the experimental and theoretical analysis of various alternative fuel pathways including biofuels, power-to-liquid fuels, and solar thermochemical fuels. He has published several scientific journal articles quantifying their thermodynamic, environmental, and economic potential. Christoph worked at a German research institute and in the Laboratory for Aviation and the Environment at MIT before joining Synhelion.