South Korea's GS Caltex supplies SAF to Japan

South Korean refiner GS Caltex exported around 5,000 kilolitres of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) to Japan's Narita airport via Japanese trading firm Itochu on 13 September, GS Caltex said today.

The SAF was a blend of neat SAF from Finnish biofuel producer Neste and jet fuel. It is compliant with the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (Corsia) and is International Sustainability and Carbon Certification (ISCC)-certified.

Neste said it supplied over 1,000t of neat Corsia-eligible and ISCC-certified SAF to GS Caltex's refinery in Yeosu for blending, in what it described as the first time SAF was blended locally in South Korea. The blended SAF was then transported to Japan.

The first batch is scheduled to be sold to major Japanese airlines All Nippon Airways (ANA) and Japan Airlines (JAL), ahead of the International Civil Aviation Organization's (ICAO) mandate to use Corsia-eligible SAF from 2027.

ANA and JAL have previous agreements with Itochu to secure SAF for their flights departing and landing at Haneda, Narita, and Chubu International Airport.

GS Caltex, Neste and Itochu have been collaborating on this project since last year, and will continue to sell Corsia-compliant SAF commercially to Japan.

Japan is proposing stricter rules for domestic SAF producers, with further details expected later this year. The country in 2022 mandated that SAF has to account for at least 10pc of domestic airlines' jet fuel consumption by 2030.

GS Caltex will likely be the fourth South Korean refiner to produce biofuels this year. S-Oil has been co-processing SAF at its Onsan refinery since January, and SK Energy in September completed a dedicated SAF production line at its 840,000 b/d Ulsan refinery which will begin commercial output next month. Hyundai Oilbank also supplied co-processed SAF to ANA via Japanese trading firm Marubeni earlier this year, marking Japan's first import of South Korean SAF.

South Korea's Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport announced an SAF expansion strategy on 30 August, which includes a target for South Korea to capture 30pc of the global blended SAF export market.

By Deborah Sun