SAF emerges as aviation’s energy security strategy

Industry voices at SAF Congress in Amsterdam on June 21 said SAF's 0.53% share of global jet fuel use exposed aviation's fuel-security gap. The International Energy Agency has warned that around a quarter of the world's seaborne oil trade transited the Strait of Hormuz in 2025, a chokepoint with limited rerouting options if supply is disrupted. That has pushed SAF beyond a climate-only pitch and into a conversation about refinery resilience, strategic supply and exposure to fossil-fuel shocks.

IATA said in June 2024 that SAF production was on track to triple in 2024 to 1.9 billion liters, or 1.5 million tonnes, but that output would still cover only 0.53% of aviation's fuel need in 2024. Willie Walsh, IATA's director general, said SAF would provide about 65% of the mitigation airlines need to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050. The arithmetic has become central to the policy argument: SAF can reduce exposure, but it cannot yet replace the scale or security of conventional jet fuel supply.

Europe's own numbers underline the gap. EASA's first ReFuelEU Aviation Annual Technical Report, published in October 2025 on 2024 data, said fuel suppliers reported SAF made up 0.6% of all aviation fuel supplied at Union airports, equal to 193 kilotonnes, and that volume avoided around 714 kilotonnes of CO2. EASA said the average SAF price in 2024 was €2,085 per tonne versus €734 per tonne for conventional jet fuel, with 25 fuel suppliers serving 33 airports across 12 member states. Airports in France, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and Germany accounted for 99% of supply.

Feedstock geography is now part of the security debate. EASA said almost all SAF in 2024 was biofuel, overwhelmingly from used cooking oil at 81% and waste animal fats at 17%, and that 69% of feedstock originated outside the EU, led by China at 38% and Malaysia at 12%. The agency said the EU's annual SAF production capacity was just above 1 million tonnes, with a realistic 2030 path to 3.5 million tonnes and an optimistic one to 5.6 million tonnes. Even then, EASA said the market could become overly reliant on imports without significant domestic expansion.

That warning mirrors Airbus, which has said Europe risks replacing fossil-fuel dependence with dependence on foreign-produced green fuels. In the United States, the Department of Energy's SAF Grand Challenge targets 3 billion gallons by 2030 and 35 billion gallons by 2050, with at least a 50% life-cycle greenhouse-gas reduction. A September 2024 Congressional Research Service report said SAF also carries rural economic-development appeal, but high production costs and competing policy goals remain the brake. The IATA SAF Handbook, published in May 2024, shows the industry is now treating SAF as a fuel procurement problem as much as an emissions problem.