Costs main bar to use of sustainable aviation fuel, ExxonMobil executive says

Chicago — Costs are the main obstacle to increasing the use of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), ExxonMobil senior vice-president Jack Williams said on Friday.

SAF accounts for just 0.2% of the jet fuel market but policymakers including US President Joe Biden see its adoption as a way to meet goals on lowering carbon emissions.

But SAF, a biofuel made from plant or animal materials including used cooking oil or agricultural waste, is up to five times more expensive than regular fuel.

“There’s one big negative and that’s the cost,” Williams said at a conference near Chicago. “As we think about how we want to grow SAF … we have got to focus on how do we minimise the costs.”

Williams said demand for jet fuel could increase from 7-million barrels a day now to 12-million barrels a day in 2050. Seven million barrels a day is the same as the International Energy Agency’s estimate for all jet fuel demand. By comparison, current production of SAF is only 71.8-million litre per year, as per US government data.

Williams described the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act as the catalysing action for biofuel production as well as carbon capture and storage and low carbon hydrogen.

Biden launched a challenge in 2021 to supply at least 13.6-billion litre of SAF annually by 2030.

Major airlines, including Delta Air Lines and Southwest Airlines, have said they want to replace 10% of jet fuel with SAF by 2030.

Reuters