Synthetic fuels hardware manufacturer, Rivan Industries, has announced the opening of Production Base 1, a 60,000 sq ft facility in London dedicated to building systems that produce synthetic natural gas (SNG).
Rivan designs and manufactures a fully integrated 1MW modular SNG system which takes in electricity from Rivan’s off-grid solar assets and turns it into H2 and CO2. These are then fed into a reactor that produces clean, low-cost SNG.
Following the successful deployment of its first 1MW system in Wiltshire in August 2026, Production Base 1 will enable Rivan to bring all metal fabrication, electronics, and assembly of its systems in-house.
When Production Base 1 is fully operational, it will run semi-automated and build up to 50 systems a year, which will then be deployed at sites across the UK to produce SNG (the gas is not produced at the manufacturing facility, only the system hardware). Alongside manufacturing, the facility has 25,000 sq ft of R&D space to rapidly increase iteration speed of future systems.
Critical for UK energy security
The development of a domestic supply chain for SNG will be critical for strengthening UK energy security. It will reduce the UK’s heavy reliance on imported fossil gas, with current import figures around 60%. Rivan’s SNG has already qualified as grid-spec, ready to inject straight into the UK gas grid with no infrastructure changes required. This will support critical industries that need cheaper, cleaner, and more secure sources of fuel than fossil gas.
Rivan is the only company in the world at this stage of developing an SNG system that can compete with fossil gas. It already operates the UK’s largest SNG plant in Wiltshire, and in early 2027 will begin operation of the world’s largest.
As it ramps up operations at Production Base 1, Rivan is on an aggressive hiring spree, recruiting for 100+ roles over the next 12 months. It’s one of the few opportunities in the UK for highly-skilled engineers to build the hardware for a new era of energy. Since the company was founded in 2024, Rivan has grown to a team of over 50 people, drawing world-class engineers from across the UK, US, Canada, and Australia.
Production Base 1 is the first of Rivan’s planned manufacturing facilities in the UK as it accelerates deployment of its systems. The company is aiming to bring up to 1TWh of SNG online in the next three years.
Operations at Production Base 1 will be headed up by Rivan’s new Manufacturing Director, John Blankenship, who has joined from US space company Blue Origin. Posting on LinkedIn, Blankenship said he was “super proud to be able to be part of something that will change the world for the better.”
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