Which Producers Are Leading the Sustainable Aviation Fuel Race?
by Linnea Ahlgren (Simple Flying) While the landscape is evolving, these are the current front-runners in an industry predicted to make billions of dollars in the coming years.
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Neste
At the front of the pack is fuel producer Neste. The company’s product made from renewable waste sources is powering planes from North America to the Asia-Pacific, with agreements for vast amounts of SAF hitting the news on an increasingly regular basis. Simple Flying recently caught up with the company’s Vice President of Renewable Aviation, Jonathan Wood, who said that airline and airport interest has practically exploded over the past couple of years.
Neste is set to increase its SAF production from 34 million gallons per annum to 515 million gallons per annum next year at its refineries in Rotterdam and Singapore. Airlines already operating on Neste MY Sustainable Aviation Fuel include Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, JetBlue, Ryanair, Malaysia Airlines, and Etihad, among others. Furthermore, the company just signed a significant deal with United Airlines and has teamed up with Coldplay to help reduce the environmental impact of the band’s current Music of the Spheres World Tour.
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World Energy
Boston-based World Energy has been providing lower carbon solutions for some time. However, it wasn’t until recently business really took off when it became the leading supplier of SAF for United Airlines flights out of LAX. It is currently expanding its production facilities in Paramount, California, in a $2 billion project in collaboration with Air Products. This will include a new hydrogen plant and extension and capacity increase of Air Products’ existing Southern California hydrogen pipeline network. The upgraded facility is expected to come online in 2025 and will scale production to 340 million gallons per annum.
The company currently produces its SAF from a feedstock of agricultural waste fats and oils. In 2020, World Energy also embarked on a partnership with Shell and the Lufthansa Group to supply the latter with sustainable aviation fuel for its flights out of San Francisco International Airport (SFO). While the one million gallons uplifted by Lufthansa and Austrian Airlines at the time may seem like a pitifully small amount, these early landmark agreements have been pivotal to getting the ball rolling and scaling production.
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Alder Fuels
Alder Fuels has also partaken of United’s zealous quest to reach net-zero CO2 by 2050 without relying on carbon offsetting. The airline, along with Honeywell, has invested a substantial amount in the company, and signed up for no less than 1.5 billion gallons of SAF – when it will actually be produced.
The SAF that Alder Fuels will make will use feedstocks like degenerative grasses and forest and agricultural residues.
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SkyNRG
SkyNRG has sourced and blended SAF for 40 airlines worldwide. However, one of the company’s most significant achievements is a partnership with Boeing that last year was expanded to the support of SkyNRG Americas’ SAF production project that is set to supply airlines and Boeing operations on the West Coast.
In the Netherlands, SkyNRG has also invested in startup Synkero, set to begin production of synthetic e-fuel from green hydrogen and renewable energy. READ MORE
