Plans are taking off for Australia’s first green jet fuel refinery

Plans are underway to develop Australia’s first biofuel refinery to produce sustainable aviation fuel under a new partnership between Qantas, Airbus and the Queensland government.

Bio energy company Jet Zero Australia and sustainable aviation fuel technology group LanzaJet will oversee the development of the facility, which will convert agricultural by-products such as sugarcane into sustainable aviation fuel. Construction of the facility is expected to start in 2024, the companies announced on Thursday morning.

Qantas CEO Alan Joyce urged the government to invest more in sustainable aviation fuel last year.Credit:Oscar Colman

Made from crops, household waste, animal fat and other biomass, sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) produces about one-fifth of the emissions of conventional jet fuel. Qantas says it wants SAF to account for 10 per cent of its fuel use by 2030 and 60 per cent by 2050, but there’s a global supply issue.

Currently, there’s only enough sustainable aviation fuel being produced to replace less than 1 per cent of the global aviation fuel industry, at about double the price of conventional jet fuel. Qantas spends $5 billion on jet fuel a year.

Qantas and Airbus have committed to investing a combined $307 million to develop a local sustainable aviation fuel industry. The Queensland biofuel refinery will be the first project funded under the joint partnership.

From this, the pair will provide $2 million of an initial $6 million capital raising to conduct a feasibility study and develop plans for the Queensland refinery, in addition to a $760,000 investment from the state government. The remaining sum will be provided by institutional funds.

The Queensland refinery was first floated in April last year. It will produce up to 100 million litres of sustainable aviation fuel a year upon completion, but a date for this has not been set.

Airbus sustainability executive Julie Kitcher said all of the planemaker’s aircraft are already capable of flying with a sustainable aviation fuel blend of up to 50 per cent.

“There is a growing positive momentum around SAF, and it’s now time to move from commitments to concrete actions,” Kitcher said at an event in Sydney revealing the plans.

Qantas’s chief sustainability officer Andrew Parker said it was the first step to establishing a domestic sustainable aviation fuel industry.

“Qantas will be the largest single customer for Australian-made SAF to meet our emissions reductions targets,” he said, adding the refinery was one of several projects the airline will fund this year in the hope of accelerating its decarbonisation plans.

So far, the carrier has purchased 10 million litres of the blended fuel from overseas to be used on flights out of London this year and another 20 million litres for flights out of California from 2025.

Queensland Deputy Premier Steven Miles said the state was the obvious choice for a green jet fuel refinery.

“With our rich supply of feedstock Queensland is in the perfect position to capitalise on the global shift to green jet fuels and become the leader of a local SAF industry” Miles said.

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