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Singapore's green jet fuel required faces cost, supply headwinds

Demand for sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) should see a longsought boost after regional airline center Singapore said it would need SAF on flights from 2026, but high costs and unsure basic material supply will indicate barriers to larger adoption remain.

The city-state will at first require flights to utilize 1% SAF, potentially rising to 3% -5% by 2030 depending on wider accessibility and adoption, which will be paid for by a levy on tickets, its transport minister said on Monday ahead of the Singapore Airshow today.

Aviation produces about 2% of the world's emissions and is Because of, thought about one of the hardest sectors to decarbonise the high expenses and absence of SAF supply and the long life of aircraft restricts the introduction of newer technologies to lower emissions.

SAF, which can be made artificially from hydrogen or from biological products such as used cooking oil or wood chips, can expense five times as much as conventional fuel and accounts for just 0.2% of the jet fuel market.

Based upon Singapore's targets, experts Wood Mackenzie projection that its SAF demand will rise to about 2,000 barrels each day (bpd) in 2026, increasing approximately 10,000 bpd in 2030.

More investments are needed to bring down the price of SAF such that it can be more commonly adopted, especially outdoors of Singapore where markets can be more rate sensitive, said Sushant Gupta, research study director for Asia Pacific, refining and oils market, at Wood Mackenzie.

Analysts at FGE likewise forecast that Singapore's SAF demand will be 2,000 bpd in 2026, with overall air travel fuel demand to reach 171,000 bpd by then.

Finnish refiner Neste has actually recently expanded its eco-friendly fuels plant in Singapore, which has an overall capability of 2.6 million metric loads annually, or 53,000 bpd, of which up to 1 million heaps can be SAF, which might meet the demand.

Securing bio-derived feedstock is pricey, stated Ong Shwu Hoon, Asia Pacific fuels vice president at ExxonMobil Asia Pacific.

There's a great deal of investment required in the aggregation, in the cleaning up and in the pre-treatment of this bio-derived feed. They are very hard to deal with, she said at an air travel conference on Monday.

SAF contends for the very same waste oil feedstocks as eco-friendly biodiesel, which is seeing fast-growing demand for roadway and sea transportation as companies seek to lower emissions.

In response to questions from on Singapore's brand-new SAF policy, Shell said on Tuesday SAF is the only scalable in-sector choice to assist materially decrease emissions from flights by 2050 but requires higher availability of raw materials, much better supply chains, enhanced production innovations, more powerful demand and clearer policies.

The schedule of SAF will be a big difficulty because the feedstock to produce it is limited, Peter Bellew, chief running officer of Riyadh Air, stated on Tuesday at the Airshow. Riyadh Air is a start-up provider based in Saudi Arabia, the world's leading oil exporter.

And carrying the feedstock is an obstacle since that creates its own sustainability concerns.

European regulators are also trying to improve making use of SAF by presenting guidelines that require airlines to meet minimums, such as 2% SAF in France by 2025 and 5% by 2030.

SAF prices are unlikely to decrease due to competitors for bio-feedstock, said Mukesh Sahdev, head of oil trading at consultancy Rystad, explaining Singapore's approximately 5% SAF target as ambitious.

(source: Reuters)