John Waite recently visited the SAF Investor London 2024 conference, a two day event that brought together groups and individuals that were interested in ensuring that the sector transitions to using Sustainable Aviation Fuels.

John’s focus there was to take the temperature of the sector, and better understand the pain points of fuel providers and buyers. His three main takeaways from the conference:

1. EU and US blending targets are aggressive and effective. They have catalysed huge momentum in the industry and all parties are now pushing to try and ensure we hit the targets in 2030 and beyond.
2. Despite this, it is almost universally agreed that SAF demand will outstrip supply for decades to come. This means the price of SAF will stay many times higher than fossil kerosene for the foreseeable future, but there is great uncertainty on how that will affect various business models as blending mandates soar towards 20% in 2030 in the EU.
3. There are many potential pathways to producing SAF, and we are likely to need all of them online in the short to medium term. The key considerations with all of these pathways is the security of feedstock supply (be that biomass or energy), the access to financing that will allow the construction of pilot facilities as well as full scale plants.  And most importantly, how do we ensure there is transparency in the CO2 and non-CO2impact of all these fuels. Diversity of pathways means there is diversity of quality, and the sustainability of SAF cannot always be assumed.

As far as Phycobloom is concerned, what does this all mean? We know that affordable and sustainable algae oil will be a sought-after feedstock for decades to come. As long as Phycobloom can build a consistent and reliable production process, there will be a practically infinite demand for our product.