Japanese airline company Japan Airlines (JAL) plans to procure around 400,000 kl/yr (6,800 b/d) of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) in the April 2030-March 2031 fiscal year.
The 400,000 kl/yr is 10pc of JAL's total jet fuel procurement for both its domestic and international flights. The company already has SAF supply contracts for around 160,000 kl/yr and it will increase its SAF contract volumes to achieve the 10pc SAF goal by 2030.
JAL in November 2022 used SAF, which was produced by Finnish biofuels producer Neste, for a domestic flight, under a supply agreement with Japanese trading house Itochu. The companies were negotiating a SAF supply contract for the 2023-24 fiscal year, which could possibly extend into a multi-year agreement, but the details were not disclosed.
The company plans to take SAF deliveries from US renewable fuels producers Raven SR and Aemetis, with the supplies expected to start in the 2024-25 fiscal year. Raven produces SAF from municipal waste, while Aemetis uses tallow, according to JAL. The SAF delivery contract with Aemetis will be a seven-year contract, JAL added.
Another US renewable fuel producer Gevo also will start supplying SAF sourced from inedible corn to JAL in the 2026-27 fiscal year, it said. This is part of an agreement between Gevo and Oneworld, a 14-member global airline alliance. JAL did not disclose the contract details, but it is likely that 5.3mn USG/yr of SAF is to be delivered over a five-year period from 2027 onward.
JAL will also receive SAF from US biofuel producer Fulcrum BioEnergy, which produces SAF from municipal solid waste at its plant in Nevada, with deliveries expected to start in the late 2020s. JAL invested around ¥900mn ($7mn) in Fulcrum in 2018, together with Japanese trading firm Marubeni and the government-affiliated Japan Overseas Infrastructure Investment Corporation for Transport and Urban Development.
JAL in parallel is working on domestic SAF supply chains and joined a voluntary organisation ‘Act for Sky' to promote the decarbonisation of the aviation sector. The company operated a commercial flight in 2021 using domestically-produced SAF. The fuel was produced using around 250,000 pieces of used cotton clothing.
Japan's land and transport ministry (MLIT) in December 2021 set a goal of 10pc SAF use by domestic airlines by 2030, after JAL and fellow airline All Nippon Airways set the 10pc SAF goals earlier in October 2021. Japan's SAF demand will reach 2.5mn-5.6mn kl/yr by 2030 and 23mn kl/yr by 2050, according to MLIT.
