Ryanair Plans to Buy Up To 100,000 Tons of Eni SAF

Ryanair DAC signed a letter of intent to buy up to 100,000 tons of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) from Eni SPA, to be delivered over five years from 2025.

The purchase is intended for Ryanair airports in Italy. The volume is equivalent to 20,000 flights from Milan to Dublin, where the carrier is based, according to Italy’s state-controlled Eni.

“SAF is a concrete solution to contribute to the decarbonization of aviation in the coming decades, yet currently only accounts for a small fraction of the current fuel usage worldwide”, it said in a news release announcing the preliminary deal.

The fuel is to be supplied by Enilive, Eni’s sustainable mobility brand. Enilive plans to raise its biorefining capacity to over 5.0 million metric tons a year by 2030.

“In its biorefineries in Italy, Enilive processes mainly waste feedstock, such as used cooking oil, animal fats and agro-food industry residues, to produce Eni Biojet, a SAF that contains 100 percent biogenic component and is suitable to be blended with conventional jet fuel by up to 50 percent”, Eni said.

Earlier this month Eni announced the signing of a joint venture agreement with LG Chem Ltd. for a planned biorefinery in South Korea, toward a final investment decision expected later this year.

It is planned to rise in the town of Daesan on the west coast of the country where local company LG Chem operates a petrochemical complex. The biorefinery is planned to have a processing capacity of 400,000 tons of renewable bio-feedstocks annually with a product offering that includes bio-naphtha, hydrotreated vegetable oil and SAF.

Ryanair director for sustainability Thomas Fowler said in a statement, “Increasing the production of SAF is a key challenge that the industry faces over the coming years”.

“Partnering with an industry leader like Eni will help Ryanair achieve our ambitious goal of using 12.5 percent SAF by 2030 and Net Zero emissions by 2050”, Fowler added. “Eni is a key supplier in our largest market, Italy, and their success in producing SAF will play a significant role as our Group grows to carry 300m passengers p.a. by 2034”.

Ryanair has bought more SAF after the European Council adopted the ReFuelEU Aviation Regulation, which requires airports in the European Union region to gradually raise the share of SAFs in their fuel mix.

Each airport in member states must have at least two percent of SAF in their total consumption starting 2025. That must increase to six percent from 2030, to 20 percent from 2035, to 34 percent from 2040, to 42 percent from 2045 and to 70 percent from 2050, according to the regulation adopted October 2023.

Considered SAF by the regulation are biofuels, recycled carbon fuels and synthetic fuels.

Enilive chief executive Stefano Ballista said, “The plants and the technologies we have developed over the last decade enable Enilive to produce the necessary amounts of SAF to meet the needs of companies [such] as Ryanair and the requirements of the EU regulations”.

Ryanair last year announced a deal with OMV AG for the purchase of 500 tons of SAF for its operations at Vienna Airport.

The agreement was part of a memorandum of understanding inked between the two sides 2022 for the purchase by Ryanair of up to 160,000 metric tons of SAF from Austria’s majority state-owned OMV.

OMV’s SAF comes from used cooking oil, processed at its refinery in the Austrian city of Schwechat, according to the company.

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