Aqueous condensate produced from biomass by flash pyrolysis is a clean feedstock for gas production by reforming at supercritical water conditions of 600-650 degrees C and 28-30 MPa. Low concentrations of soda ash in the condensate reduce the CO content of the reformer gas to about 2% and proportionally increase the hydrogen content. This lean-CO gas appears as a primary candidate for upgrading to CHFG quality. Desk studies, reported in this paper, concern the design of a conceptual gas conditioning process and reveal interesting potential for production of CHFG, free of CO and CO2, a hydrogen content of 50% with a pressure of 30 MPa, without the need for gas compression. The high processing pressure provides for small equipment size and low energy consumption. (C) 2006 International Association for Hydrogen Energy. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.