Following shortly after a similar offtake deal with US e-SAF startup Twelve, International Airlines Group (IAG), the owner of British Airways, Iberia, Aer Lingus, Vueling and LEVEL, has announced a 10-year agreement to purchase power-to-liquid aviation fuel, or e-SAF, from California-based Infinium. The volume and value of the deal were not disclosed, but the e-SAF will be produced at the clean-tech company’s Project Roadrunner plant, a former gas-to-liquids facility currently being converted in West Texas. Infinium says the plant will become the world’s biggest e-SAF facility once it is fully operational. The company has backing from Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund and Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Catalyst, and in September it raised a potential $1 billion through Brookfield Asset Management towards Roadrunner and the deployment of other e-fuel projects globally. It also has a strategic deal with American Airlines for delivery of commercial volumes starting in 2026.

“Long-term, bankable commitments like these are what drive the ability to ramp up production of e-SAF,” commented Robert Schuetzle, Infinium’s CEO, on the IAG agreement.

IAG claims its airlines used an estimated 12% of global SAF supplies last year. The new deal will enable the company to access Infinium’s e-SAF for any of its five airlines, which collectively operate 582 aircraft to more than 250 destinations in 91 countries.

“So far, we’re on track to deliver our 10% 2030 SAF goal,” said Jonathon Counsell, IAG’s Group Sustainability Officer, “and agreements with innovators like Infinium are key to reaching this target.”    

Aviation’s focus on e-SAF has intensified as global demand for SAF increases dramatically and as the EU prepares to activate a 2% fuel blending mandate for flights from its airports from 1 January. EU mandates will progressively escalate, climbing to 70% by 2050. Other governments, including the UK, are following, initially with mandates varying from 1% to 10% by 2030. Both the UK and EU SAF mandates will add a power-to-liquid requirement from 2028 and 2030 respectively.

Of the Infinium investment secured from Brookfield Asset Management, more than $200 million is earmarked for developments including Project Roadrunner and up to $850 million more for deployment of other Infinium e-fuel projects globally, all subject to pre-agreed metrics.

Breakthrough Energy Catalyst has also committed $75 million in project level equity to Project Roadrunner, its first announced equity investment. Breakthrough pulls together corporate and philanthropic organisations to expedite the use of new technologies by supporting clean technology innovation in commercial-scale projects.

American Airlines, the world’s largest carrier and a partner of multiple IAG airlines in the oneworld marketing alliance, has also entered a strategic partnership with Infinium to secure commercial volumes of e-SAF produced by Project Roadrunner.

Announcing their new deal, IAG and Infinium highlighted the abundance of CO2 either captured at the source of industrial production, extracted from biogenic waste or sucked directly from the atmosphere by giant fans.

“This new class of fuel is not encumbered by feedstock limitations, has a higher degree of emissions reduction versus conventional jet fuel, and has a relatively low land and water use footprint,” said the companies.

IAG’s Counsell urged regulators to focus on measures to encourage decarbonisation of air transport, rather than increase costs for the sector.

“Aviation as an industry is working hard to decarbonise and policy should focus on solutions such as SAF, rather than only increasing costs which risk affecting the competitiveness of the European aviation industry,” he said.  

“What the industry needs is additional policy support to attract funds to construct SAF plants and reduce aviation’s reliance on fossil fuels.”

The IAG-Infinium deal follows the formation of Project SkyPower by a high-profile coalition of European companies including airlines, airports, energy companies and financiers to advocate for development of an e-SAF industry in Europe.  

A report produced by the group in May argued that e-SAF is the most effective, and eventually the most affordable, pathway to low-carbon flight and urged governments to develop policies that reduced investment risk in infrastructure development and fuel production before SAF mandates are activated.

It also estimated that capital investment of €15 billion to €25 billion ($16-27bn) would be needed by 2030, and a further €3 billion to €5 billion annually to achieve the scale needed to meet ever-increasing SAF blending mandates.

“It typically takes five years for an e-SAF project between reaching final investment decision and being operational,” said the report. “Therefore, final investment decisions for e-SAF projects are needed by 2025 to start production by 2030.”

Photo: Infinium’s Project Roadrunner facility in West Texas

Tony Harrington

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A high-profile European coalition has joined forces to urgently advance the production of e-SAF – sustainable aviation fuels produced by combining renewable electricity, water and captured carbon dioxide. Project SkyPower brings together 13 CEOs and more than 50 companies including airlines, airports, energy companies and financiers to push for government policies that enable production of e-SAF from 2030. A report by the new group says Europe has a strong opportunity to capture a big share of the global e-SAF market, which it estimates could be worth €250 billion ($270bn) by 2050 and create up to 90,000 direct jobs. But it argues that to do so will require investments between €15 billion and €25 billion by 2030, encouraged by supportive government policies. Globally, says the report, Europe has 26 of the 31 large-scale e-SAF projects currently proposed. “But while 70% of the global e-SAF project pipeline is located in Europe,” it adds, “no plant has yet reached final investment decision (FID).”

Foundation members of Project SkyPower include Air France-KLM, easyJet, Arcadia eFuels, Copenhagen Airports, private jet service Victor, SAF providers Velocys and SkyNRG, and finance and technology providers including ING, Rockton, Natixis, KGAL and Topsoe. It is co-chaired by Dutch industrialist and former Unilever CEO Paul Polman, and the CEOs of KLM, Marjan Rintel, and Arcadia eFuels, Amy Hebert.

“Project SkyPower’s mission is to pave the way for the first large-scale e-SAF plants in Europe to reach final investment decision by 2025,” says the report, “in order to drive progress towards key regulatory targets, ReFuelEU and the UK mandate.”

To reach those targets and achieve net zero emissions by 2050, the group argues that production of e-SAF must commence by 2030 and continue to develop, initially with strong government support.

Project SkyPower has been convened to promote e-SAF as the most effective and eventually most affordable pathway to low-carbon flight, and to urge governments to introduce policies that reduce investment risk in infrastructure development and fuel production before SAF mandates take effect.  

While e-SAF technology is scaled, the group wants government funding from existing taxes on the aviation industry to bridge the premium between e-SAF and fossil fuels, helping to secure long-term demand and mitigating first-of-a-kind project risk to initially unlock commercial capital.

The Project SkyPower report says e-SAF could deliver lifecycle emissions up to 90% lower than conventional aviation fuels with few feedstock constraints compared to other SAF types.

“Bio-SAF, or SAF produced from biogenic material, offers an affordable and commercially available decarbonisation solution for aviation both in the near and long term,” says the report.

“However, due to the globally limited availability of sustainable biomass feedstock and competing demands from other sectors, bio-SAF alone will not be able to decarbonise the aviation industry. It will need to be complemented by large volumes of e-SAF.”

As well, says the report, e-SAF production is held back by a lack of renewable energy generating capacity, and the need to accelerate development of Direct Air Capture technology for trapping atmospheric CO2.  

Project SkyPower warns that European aviation has less than two years to achieve final investment decisions for e-SAF plants if the fuel is to be available in time to comply with EU and UK SAF blending mandates.

It estimates capital investment of €15 billion to €25 billion ($16-27bn) will be needed by 2030, with a further €3 billion to €5 billion annually to reach the scale needed to meet escalating blending mandates.

“E-SAF needs to reach commercial scale by 2030 and hit market tipping points in the 2030s to reach the scale necessary to enable a lower-emissions aviation industry by 2050,” claims the report.

“It typically takes five years for an e-SAF project between reaching final investment decision and being operational. Therefore, FIDs for e-SAF projects are needed by 2025 to start production by 2030.”

The report says economic modelling performed for Project SkyPower indicates that without government subsidies, the production cost alone of e-SAF in Europe could be five to eight times greater than that of conventional jet fuel, including Emission Trading Scheme costs.

KLM’s CEO, Marjan Rintel, one of the three co-chairs of Project SkyPower, and the Air France-KLM representative in the group, said her company had studied multiple decarbonisation technologies “of which synthetic fuel (e-SAF) is expected to be the most promising in terms of feedstock availability and cost perspective.”

She added: “Project SkyPower is modelling the conditions required to overcome the barriers to scaling e-SAF. By working together, we now have a shared economic model for e-SAF and an action plan to be implemented by the wider aviation ecosystem.”

Another of the group’s co-chairs, Arcadia’s Amy Hebert said: “Successful delivery of Project SkyPower’s action plan will fundamentally change the e-SAF landscape, establishing the necessary conditions to take final investment decisions and accelerate this critical technology towards commercial operation by 2030.” Her company is aiming to activate a new e-SAF plant at Vordingborg, on the Danish island of Zealand, in 2026. The third of Project SkyPower’s co-chairs, Paul Polman, said: “Partnering with governments, financial institutions and civil society is imperative to scale e-SAF to a tipping point where it not only progresses on urgent emissions reduction but also secures millions of jobs and future-proofs the aviation industry.”

Photo: A flight by KLM from Amsterdam to Madrid in 2021 used 500 litres of e-SAF produced by Shell

Tony Harrington

Correspondent

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