Outlooks on SAF and Energy Trajectories: Energy Projects Conference & Expo 2025

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July 24, 2025

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by Jenna Bloxom* (Advanced Biofuels USA) The Energy Projects Conference & Expo 2025 was billed as “the largest event globally for professionals working on major energy projects” with an estimated 10,000+ attendees across the diverse energy spectrum uniting for “6 leading conferences under 1 roof for the first time” with over 400 vendors and 250 speakers.

The event began with several plenary sessions addressing the major issues and future projections impacting the overall energy sector (complete with taped opening remarks from House Speaker Mike Johnson), but the vast majority of the expo was divided into six distinctive conferences:

LNG Export (engineering and construction);
LNG Export (operations, maintenance, and turnarounds);
PetroChem and Refining (engineering and construction);
Midstream (engineering and construction);
Hydrogen and Ammonia (engineering and construction); and
Sustainable Aviation Fuels (engineering and construction).

This two-day symposium, particularly oriented around the OEM (original equipment manufacturer) and the EPC (engineering, procurement, and construction) energy workforce, focused its discussions on research, engineering, construction, supply chains, and operations and maintenance while additionally contextualizing both advancements and challenges in the energy sphere in terms of recent global events, economic decision-making, and policy shifts.

It is important to note that EPC 2025 occurred after the United States House of Representatives approved the preliminary version of the H.R. 1 Budget Bill (119th Congress, 2025-2026) but before any changes were made, debated, and passed by the United States Senate. The latter’s version of the bill (approved by the Senate in the following weeks) contained numerous alterations, especially regarding the energy sector (and, perhaps most notably, the clean energy industry) and affected policy trajectories for both electricity and liquid fuels. Many of the assertions made by the expo’s speakers during the beginning of June were influenced by the language and provisions found in the House’s initial budgetary plans, so their perspectives may or may not have undergone transformation a mere month later due to several unexpected legislative adjustments.

The following sections outline several of the overarching themes as well as core deliberations which were repeatedly emphasized by the speakers during their presentations and further underscored by the attendees in their questions to the panelists.

Topics and Concerns of the Entire Energy Sector

■ Uncertainty Abound and Its Tangible Consequences:

There was unanimous consent among the energy industries represented at the EPC 2025 that the current uncertainty plaguing the U.S. economy is profoundly detrimental to the sector and, furthermore, is already manifesting long-term consequences for planned energy projects. Perhaps the real muddle, though, is that the overwhelming majority of these corporations have been caught off guard by the upheaval embodied in the first six months of the Trump administration. With the Republicans controlling not only the White House but also both gavels in Congress, fuel and power companies—as well as their upstream and downstream partners—expected a regulatory liberation of legendary proportions. This emancipation may still occur in the upcoming months, yet undesirable conditions including rapidly-changing tariffs, continuing inflation worries, existing and emerging foreign wars, international trade interruptions, and sizeable jumps in the OPEC+ output have severely undercut the excitement of the conventional energy community.

Upcoming energy projects with years of sunk costs in terms of planning, investment, and secured capital provisions are suddenly being delayed or now require significant re-negotiations that, while practical, are unpalatable to all parties. The OEMs, which have invested millions of man-hours as well as dollars into the anticipated needs of their customers, are finding their engineered solutions solidly placed on the backburner, and oil suppliers feeling pressure to offset the inevitable attrition in their operational wells are hesitant to make the expensive yet necessary advancements to their capacity.

In short, energy-oriented companies were promised an unprecedented boom to their capabilities and pocketbooks, but the deliberately chaotic decisions made by the Trump administration since January have erased the stability upon which these multi-billion dollar projects rely. Although many oil and gas lobbyists are flocking to D.C. for answers from their biggest elected advocates, uncertainty regarding today and tomorrow is a surprising fly in the petroleum-based ointment for U.S. energy expansion.

■ Workforce Decline:

Leaders across the energy sector are sounding the alarm regarding the sharp decline in the availability of trained energy workers, a reality that is already hindering timely construction and operations but expected to radically intensify over the next five years. The existing workforce of skilled plant operators, mechanics, managers, and engineers are retiring in large numbers, and the U.S. simply does not have an adequate supply of new, educated employees to replace them. Panelists estimated that only one engineer is being hired for every ten engineers who retire in the OEM and EPC sectors. While countries like China and India are prioritizing the education and training of engineers, factory operators, and project planners in their own expanding manufacturing and energy industries, the United States appears to be at a widening disadvantage in these STEM and construction fields.

■ Hydrogen’s Rollercoaster:

For all those attending the expo explicitly for two days of robust industrial discussions tailored to hydrogen and ammonia, it must have been an auspicious beginning to their conference experience when, within the very first hour of the opening plenary session, hydrogen was declared “dead” for the next five years. Beyond the foreboding sense of disquiet that likely ensued for these participants, the optimism for hydrogen has undeniably waned in the OEM and EPC outlook.

A darling of energy discussions in years past, the trajectory for hydrogen is—at least for the present—decidedly more grim, especially in light of the prevailing economic uncertainty. The high costs, logistical and conversion difficulties, and infrastructure expansion risks were all cited as reasons for firmly relegating hydrogen to a more abstract future component of the U.S. energy tableau.

[Note: Since the conference, the newly-passed legislation altered the Clean Hydrogen Production Credit to expire on Jan. 1st, 2028 rather than Jan. 1st, 2033. Given the recent changes of the legislation, it remains unclear the degree to which this shortened timeline will impact any proposed or planned U.S. hydrogen projects].

Topics and Concerns for the Sustainable Aviation Fuel Sector

■ The SAF Industry Liftoff Endures—With Some Familiar Drag:

Speakers across all seven SAF panels highlighted a multitude of promising trends for the continual progress of the industry, but no one rivals Steve Csonka of CAAFI (Commercial Aviation Alternative Fuels Initiative) when it comes to buoyant expectations for SAF. A few encouraging insights regarding SAF from Csonka included:

The U.S. expects to produce 10 times more SAF in 2025 than in 2024.
There are 12 additional D7566 pathways in progress for ASTM approval (in addition to the 8 pathways already approved for SAF conversion) as well as 4 new co-processing pathways seeking certification approval (apart from the 3 pathways for D1655 currently in use).
CAAFI predicts that the 50% maximum blend level restriction for SAF with Jet A fuel will likely be rescinded in the next eighteen months.
There are about 200 new participants with CAAFI, bringing the total group affiliates to about 420.
Significant policy, market, and investment signals will support faster SAF integration, especially with expanding global partnerships, while SAF achieving GHG emissions reductions of 65% to over 100% are available for use today.

Of course, along with the SAF industry’s new prospects, there are some old challenges.

The cost of SAF feedstock remains very high, (at least) double or triple the expense of fossil inputs, though this represents just one aspect of the persistently steep expense of overall production versus conventional jet fuel.

Perpetual capital development struggles in conjunction with ongoing consumer disinterest in paying long-term premium pricing further exacerbate financial uncertainties as the industry attempts to de-risk this commodity in the global market. Although the book-and-claim system for SAF continues to have potent appeal across all aviation arenas, there is stilted progress in establishing a reliable framework that would be widely accepted across borders. And, as always, while the demand for SAF seems infinite, the corresponding high-volume rollout is still slow to manifest.

Beyond the typical hiccups for the industry, though, emerges a newly urgent complication to SAF scale-up: transport and storage.

The successful upsurge in gallon capacity and tangible production outputs are now underscoring the reality that airports simply do not have the storage capacity for hefty SAF deliveries, so much so that this infrastructure issue is causing ripples further down the supply chain as airlines are increasingly hesitant to sign massive offtake agreements due to the absence of practical storage facilities. Delivery and holding problems threaten to further postpone the immediate integration of SAF even at the most prominent airports across the United States, thus deepening the urgency for a functioning book-and-claim schema.

Finally, while largely excluded from the dialogue within SAF sessions, major changes to both the funding and the personnel in the U.S. executive branch introduce the very real possibility for unforeseen setbacks to future SAF rollout. Even CAAFI is not immune to the threat of budget cuts, and so far, there has been little indication if its vital partnership with the Federal Aviation Administration will be funded beyond the end of this year.

■ The Policy Persuasion:

Policy considerations were refreshingly integral to the insights presented throughout every SAF panel, and the speakers repeatedly acknowledged the government’s multifaceted importance to advanced biofuels while also recognizing the necessity of dynamic political engagement. During the conference in mid-June, the atmosphere was teeming with excitement over the House’s version of the budgetary bill that proposed a $1.75 per gallon tax credit for SAF, resulting in much speculation regarding the vast growth opportunities for the industry with such a high production credit. (Note: in the final budget bill, the incentive was scaled-back significantly to just $1.00 per gallon, effective in the later months of 2025).

Surprisingly, the radical changes to the indirect land use change calculations for biofuels in this same proposed legislation were never mentioned by any speaker or attendee during the panels or Q&A sessions; when Steve Csonka was privately queried about these possible alterations, he conveyed that only a couple CAAFI members had expressed any interest or concern with respect to the implications of removing ILUC considerations (this measure remained present in the finalized version of the bill several weeks later).

Additionally, the potential feedstock production limitations to the ‘domestic’ sources of the United States, Canada, and Mexico were only briefly mentioned in passing a few times and mainly with regards to possible effects on the long-standing biofuel partnerships with Brazil (this provision also made it into the final legislation). Beyond simply the budget bill, other policy decisions already enacted, including tariffs on U.S. trading partners and Trump’s more isolationist objectives regarding the economy and its metallurgical resources, were not as prevalent in the SAF panels as they were in the conference’s plenary sessions.

■ The Carbon Conundrum:

For over a decade, advanced biofuels enterprises have adamantly contended that their fuel embodies more than just an alternative source of combustible molecules given its profound, supplementary characteristic of reducing carbon emissions compared to conventional energy resources. Indeed, the strong promotion of SAF’s ancillary environmental superiority is not merely for the sake of correcting the market’s omission of this externality, but rather because the successful monetization of the carbon value remains a critical component to balancing the books for SAF producers. The past ten years have been littered with assurances to financial investors and buyers alike that the intangible value of carbon can not only be made tangible but also profitable, and now the potential in achieving this reality in the form of Scope 3 emissions agreements monopolized many discussions among the conference speakers. There has already been some tentative success with Scope 3 emission purchase agreements, namely between the International Aviation Group and Microsoft, so, of course, there is a decided hunger to proliferate similar offtake contracts for the sake of increased SAF funding and long-term risk reduction.

Nevertheless, what was clear from the expo’s conversations is that the SAF industry has yet to confront the new reality that carbon’s intrinsic value in relation to tackling climate change has diminished in appeal since the current federal government refuses to acknowledge that climate change, in fact, exists. There has been a long era of support in the U.S. for the theoretical and practical benefits of pursuing some modicum of ‘decarbonization’, but with this Trump administration, there will be neither sticks nor carrots for GHG mitigation for the next four years.

Certainly, some companies may voluntarily involve themselves in emission offtakes, but logically, the majority of the external incentives to do so have been suspended.

It appears from the EPC’s conversations, however, that SAF industry leaders have not come to terms with this change and still expect that marketing carbon emissions reductions will continue to bear the same fruit despite the appetite for such already subsiding. The SAF industry has relied on its carbon reduction framework for so long that it may prove difficult to pivot its marketing approach, at least domestically, during this unique period when U.S. politics on environmental priorities clash with those of the rest of the world.

■ Betting On Quantity:

While excited optimism for SAF’s remarkable growth and advancement dominated the conference’s panels—and rightfully so, as the industry has continued to make significant leaps forward in recent years—this cheerful haze was penetrated by an almost palpable sense of desperation for SAF producers to immediately achieve extraordinary levels of output.

A silent consensus seems to have emerged across the entire SAF supply chain that sheer quantity will be the key to generating the rest of the breakthroughs necessary in the logistical, technological, and financial spheres in order to overcome those scale-up difficulties which remain stubbornly monumental in both complexity and consequence.

The urgency to produce this revitalizing quantity of SAF gallons is likewise omnipresent, especially as both corporations and investors are anxious to begin recouping their money and restoring their faith that SAF production is capable of operating in the black.

In short, the cumulative momentum of the SAF industry appears to have reached a crucial precipice now, and there is subtle yet staunch concern that without an impressive supply of SAF to propel the industry forward into undeniable markers of success, there is a danger that even SAF producers which have already reached profitability may be dragged backwards. Only time will tell if volumetric triumph will be enough to vanquish the lingering obstacles to market competitiveness.

Final Notes

The Energy Projects Conference & Expo 2025 made it clear that the U.S. energy sector, from LNG to petroleum to SAF, is facing a notable epoch of both demand growth and policy support, yet the impulses of the new Trump administration have also created shockwaves of uncertainty which have interrupted plans as well as planning. This undercurrent of risk is currently diluting much of the initial impetus expected by energy OEMs, EPCs, and producers, so the next several months of policy decisions will help to clarify which obstacles and opportunities will shape the trajectory of U.S. energy for the next four years.

For more information regarding the topics, speakers, and organization of the SAF panels at the Energy Projects Conference & Expo 2025, please see the agenda above.

*Jenna Bloxom is a political scientist with fourteen years of combined professional and research experience specific to biofuel policies and technology, the politics of innovation, and natural resource management. With practical training in both the domestic and international arenas, Bloxom executed strategic public outreach in the private sector as well as for interest groups including ACORE in addition to a stint in academia teaching bioenergy policy graduate courses and publishing on renewables-based economic development in U.S. cities. As the first political scientist admitted to Colorado State University’s NSF-funded IGERT bioenergy program, Bloxom pursued an interdisciplinary Ph.D. by utilizing a scientific emphasis to study the viability of sustainable aviation fuel in conjunction with the intrinsic policy foundations of this emerging global production network.

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White House Transportation Fuels Policy tax policy tax credits tariffs Sustainability storage tanks pathways offtake agreements Mexico markets/sales Legislation-Federal Jetfuel (Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF)) Investing India ILUC (Indirect/Induced Land Use Change) Hydrogen/Renewable Hydrogen GHG (Greenhouse Gas Emissions) Intensity feedstock prices Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) ESG (Environmental Social Governance) environmental policy energy policy co-processing climate change mitigation climate change China Carbon Intensity (CI)/Carbon Footprint Canada Brazil book-and-claim BioRefineries/Renewable Fuel Production Aviation Fuel/Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) aviation fuel (SAF) terminal aviation fuel (SAF) price ASTM D7566 (Standard Specification for Aviation Turbine Fuel Containing Synthesized Hydrocarbons) ASTM D1655 ASTM ammonia airports 45Z Clean Fuel Production Tax Credit 45V Hydrogen Production Tax Credit

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