Charting Sustainable Aviation Fuel uptake in the Asia-Pacific

December 1st 2023

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A report just released by financial services firm, KPMG, said the increasingly favorable local policy environment in the Asia-Pacific is prompting a number of players to consider opportunities for SAF development in the region. Read More » “As a result, airlines, airports, investors and fuel producers are increasingly making public commitments to promoting the growth of local SAF supply and demand. However, with inherent feedstock limitations and challenges in scaling up more advanced SAF production pathways, the development of a SAF industry in the Asia-Pacific has the potential to both accelerate and hinder SAF progress,” it said.

KPMG reports developments underway are:

• India has a SAF roadmap under development and some airlines have tested SAF blends. Vistara recently operated its first long-haul SAF flight from the country.

• Last September, Thai Airways International announced it will gradually increase SAF use from 2% by 2025 to 60% by 2050. Bangkok is building a new facility, to be completed by the end of 2024, to convert used cooking oil into SAF.

• In 2022, Singapore Airlines partnered with the government in a pilot SAF credits scheme. Neste started SAF production in Singapore in May 2023. In the same month, Jet Aviation announced a partnership with FlyORO, a fuel blending services provider, to offer SAF blends in Singapore.

• Japan established a SAF roadmap in 2021 and in May this year the government confirmed that by 2030 10% of aviation fuel used for international flights at Japanese airports will have to be SAF. This follows industry progress in April, when locally blended SAF was produced in Japan for the first time. It was purchased by All Nippon Airways and Japan Airlines as part of a demonstration project sponsored by the government.

• In June, following a one-year program run by Air New Zealand, the carrier and the government committed multi-million dollars to investigate SAF production in New Zealand. The next phase of this program will assess the technical, economic, environmental and logistical impacts of two SAF facilities proposed by LanzaJet and Fulcrum BioEnergy.

• A SAF roadmap is being developed by the Australian government, Boeing and Australia’s National Science Agency. In 2023 LanzaJet announced a feasibility study for an Alcohol-to-Jet facility in Queensland. It has received support from Queensland’s state government, Qantas Group and Airbus for the multi-million dollar joint program.

KPMG says SAF activity may boom in China in particular. Until early 2023, the only notable SAF production in the country was Sinopec’s facility outside Shanghai, which delivers fuel to the Airbus Delivery Centre in Tianjin. In April, Cathay Pacific committed to developing four power-to-liquid production facilities in China alongside the State Power Investment Corporation.

• China’s track record in rolling out wind and solar energy, as well as transport infrastructure more widely, has demonstrated the country’s ability to move quickly once it decides to adopt a technology solution, KPMG said. If the four facilities, backed by the Mainland government are delivered from 2024 to 2026 as planned, commercial SAF production in China could kick-start earlier than Europe where approaches to SAF incentives are still being refined, such as the UK.

• Boeing and the U.S. have launched an initiative to catalyze the development and use of SAF among Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) member countries. Aiming to support APEC economies efforts to develop SAF supply, the U.S. Department of Transportation and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), are partnering with Boeing to sponsor the project. It aims to identify the availability of sustainable feedstocks for SAF, analyze new pathways to optimize SAF production, leverage existing industries and infrastructure for SAF production and enable the development of SAF-specific policies for production and use.