European SAF producers urge EU to support wider range of feedstock supply

SUSTAINABLE aviation fuel (SAF) producers in Europe have urged EU leaders to implement rules that incentivise production using a wider range of feedstocks. 

Leading the calls, Latvia-based NorSAF warned that the EU’s existing policies will create dependence on China. 

Under the bloc’s ReFuelEU programme, 70% of all fuel consumed by aircrafts departing European airports must be SAF by 2050, half of which must be synthetic fuel made from green hydrogen and CO2 captured from industrial flue gas. Much of the remaining supply is likely to be met by fuel produced from hydroprocessed esters and fatty acids such as used cooking oil and waste animal fat, which combined accounted for 98% of EU SAF feedstock in 2024, according to the European Union Aviation Safety Agency’s (EASA) latest figures. 

EASA reported that more than two-thirds of SAF feedstock was imported into the EU, over half of which came from China. Speaking at an industry roundtable in Brussels earlier this month, NorSAF founder Janis Kisiels warned: “China is already building out its domestic SAF industry, with ten SAF plants operational, and is increasingly looking to use its own feedstocks to produce SAF at home. The day may come when China no longer exports the used cooking oil Europe relies on but instead sells us the finished SAF”. 

The company, part of the multinational ACMI (aircraft, crew, maintenance and insurance) provider Avia Solutions Group, urged EU leaders to set a new “sub-mandate” within the ReFuelEU programme that would require a certain amount of SAF to be advanced biofuels produced from waste and residue feedstocks.

Jonathan Wood, chief commercial officer of Nova Pangaea Technologies, echoed Kisiels’ calls, the two companies having recently signed a memorandum of understanding to build a bioethanol plant in Latvia. He warned that the “availability of used vegetable oils will become more constrained” as SAF production is scaled up. He added: “That’s why we need to develop and scale up production technologies to convert biomass wastes and residues into liquid fuels.” 

The ReFuelEU synthetic SAF requirement drew criticism earlier this year when researchers in Sweden found that production based on green hydrogen and captured CO2 cost nearly twice as much per tonne than a gasification method, and was less energy efficient. 

The European Commission declined to comment.