JGC, Kansai Airports and Revo Intl. Establish Basic Agreement to Commercialize SAF in Japan

(JGC Holdings/Biobased Diesel Daily) JGC Holdings Corp., Kansai Airports and Revo International Inc. announced June 29 the conclusion of an agreement on supply of used cooking oil from restaurants and other sources at the three airports (Kansai International, Osaka International and Kobe) operated by Kansai Airports Group as a feedstock in production of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), the product pursued by JGC Holdings, Revo International and Cosmo Oil Co. Ltd.

Amid more urgent calls around the world to curb CO2 emissions, the airline industry has seen increasing demand for SAF.

In Japan, a target set by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism aims to increase the proportion of SAF in aviation fuel to 10 percent by 2030.

In the SAF production envisioned, JGC Holdings, Revo International and Cosmo Oil have planned the first large-scale commercial domestic production of SAF at Cosmo Oil’s Sakai Refinery in Osaka.

The annual production capacity planned will be on the level of 8 million gallons, with the first commercial supply beginning in 2025 in time for Expo 2025 in Osaka, when interest in sustainable development goals will grow further.

This agreement forms the basis for Kansai Airports to contribute in securing used cooking oil. The company will raise awareness of the importance of SAF not only at their airport restaurants, hotels and in-flight meal facilities, but also at nearby restaurants, schools and communities.

Revo International will collect the oil at sites introduced by Kansai Airports and transport it to the SAF production site planned by JGC Holdings and the other business partners.

JGC Holdings will coordinate the entire SAF-manufacturing business using the waste cooking oil as a raw material.

In addition, this initiative is part of a project subsidized by the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO).

JGC Holdings and Kansai Airports, both members of a public-private council to promote the introduction of SAF, will work with national and local government offices to address technical and economic challenges in production of domestic SAF at scale.

Through this collaboration, JGC Holdings, Kansai Airports and Revo International will establish a supply network for used cooking oil to promote decarbonization at Kansai's gateways, arranging a system that offers a steady supply of domestic SAF. READ MORE

Excerpt from Japan Times: “In order to realize stable production of SAF, we will set up waste cooking oil collection sites across the country,” said an official of Revo International, a Kyoto-based producer of biofuels.

Together with Tokyo-based Cosmo Oil and Yokohama-based JGC Holdings, Revo plans to start the nation’s first large-scale production of SAF from as soon as fiscal 2024.

The program includes building tanks in different parts of Japan — possibly in Hiroshima Prefecture or Okayama Prefecture as well — to store collected waste cooking oil and supplying it to an SAF production facility that will be built at Cosmo Oil’s refinery in the city of Sakai, Osaka Prefecture.

JGC Holdings will design and build the facility, while Cosmo Oil will produce and sell the SAF.

Other companies are also scrambling to collect waste cooking oil. Revo says some of the restaurants it does business with are switching to dealers that buy used oil at higher prices.

“There is a dealer that pays more than ¥500 for an 18-liter square can, five times more than before,” said a Revo official.

According to Revo, such dealers can be found across the country, including in the Chugoku region, and there are reports that waste cooking oil is being shipped to a mass SAF producer in Finland.

To decarbonize aviation, the government has set a target of having domestic airlines replace 10% of their jet fuel with SAF by 2030.

Estimated demand in 2030 totals 1.71 million kiloliters, but the supply capacity within Japan is likely to be around 70% of that amount given the current situation.

If waste cooking oil is shipped overseas, it will become difficult to supply SAF in Japan, which could lead to some eco-friendly foreign airlines avoiding flying into the country.

The national oils and fats business cooperative association, which has waste oil recycling dealers as members, says 380,000 tons of waste cooking oil were collected in fiscal 2021, out of which 120,000 tons were exported — up 33% from a year before.

More than 50% of the used oil collected and supplied within Japan is used for livestock feed. The amount used to produce fuel remains small, at around a ton.

Some companies are seeking to expand the types of raw materials that can be used to produce SAF, as well as diversifying suppliers.

Euglena, a Tokyo-based biofuels developer aiming to commercialize SAF production using euglena as well as used cooking oil, said, “We will procure (raw materials) at home and abroad, including oil that is disposed of during the process of producing cooking oil.” READ MORE