UK government awards 17 companies £63m in SAF funding

The UK government has awarded 17 companies £63m in sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) funding under the Advanced Fuels Fund (AFF) scheme, swelling overall funding to £198m.

The biggest winners were Velocys (£27m), which is developing a commercial scale plant that uses gasification and Fischer-Tropsch technology to convert black bin bag waste into SAF; Lanzatech UK (£24m), which aims to convert steel mill off-gases into ethanol and then use alcohol-to-jet technology; and Fulcrum Bioenergy (£16.7m), which is also converting black bin bag waste into SAF.

Zero Petroleum (£3.49m) is developing a demonstration production module operating in Orkney and commercial scale plant that uses power-to-liquid technology to convert biogenic and direct air capture CO2 and green hydrogen into SAF, Willis Sustainable Fuels receives £4.7m to develop power-to-liquid technology to convert CO2 and green hydrogen into SAF, and Oxccu Tech gets £2.81m for similar work converting biogenic CO2 and green hydrogen into SAF.

Essar Energy Transition (EET), a UK subsidiary of Indian multinational Essar Group, was awarded £2.5m for a SAF production hub at its Stanlow refinery.

EET plans to establish a methanol-to-jet (MtJ) production hub capable of producing 200,000 tonnes per annum (tpa) of advanced SAF, using around 550,000 tpa of renewable e-methanol and bio-methanol sourced in the UK and internationally, including from its sister company – Essar Future Energies – which is developing an e-methanol project in Gujarat, India.

Having completed a feasibility study earlier in 2025, the receipt of the AFF grant enables EET to advance to the pre-front-end engineering design (pre-FEED) stage.  It is targeting completion of pre-FEED by March 2026, with full FEED commencing in the second quarter 2026 and final investment decision (FID) by the end of 2027.

SAF produced at the hub will use EET’s established UK jet export infrastructure, including the Manchester Jet, Midlands, and UKOP oil pipeline systems, as well as existing road and marine distribution routes, allowing supply to regions across the UK.

The UK’s SAF Mandate, effective from 1 January this year, has set progressive targets for aviation fuel suppliers to incorporate SAF into jet fuel for flights departing from the UK with revenues funded through an industry levy. The targets are designed to support the UK’s Jet Zero Strategy to achieve net-zero aviation emissions by 2050.

By 2040, 22% of total jet fuel demand must be SAF, up from 2% today. EET said the proposed MtJ facility would enable it to meet its own advanced SAF obligations under the UK SAF Mandate by 2035.