Sustainable Aviation Fuel Production in France

SAF: The Bridge Technology That Cannot Wait

Sustainable Aviation Fuel is not the future of aviation decarbonisation — it is the present. While hydrogen aircraft remain in the demonstrator phase and battery technology cannot approach the energy density required for commercial flight, SAF can be loaded into today’s aircraft from today’s fuelling systems and burned in today’s engines. It is a drop-in replacement for conventional jet fuel with 70-90% lower lifecycle CO2 emissions when produced from advanced feedstocks. France has staked over €1 billion of France 2030 funding on building domestic SAF production to scale, positioning itself as Europe’s leading SAF producer while hydrogen infrastructure matures.

The strategic logic is sound. Aviation must decarbonise on a regulatory timeline that does not wait for breakthrough technologies. The EU’s ReFuelEU Aviation regulation — adopted in 2023 — mandates that all fuel uplifted at EU airports must contain minimum SAF percentages: 2% from 2025, rising to 6% by 2030, 20% by 2035, 34% by 2040, and 70% by 2050. The 70% figure includes a specific sub-mandate: at least 35% of total fuel must be synthetic e-fuels (Power-to-Liquid) by 2050. This is a legally binding supply signal that did not exist in 2020. France 2030 funding is the response to that signal — building production capacity before demand forces emergency imports at unfavourable prices.

The Three SAF Production Pathways

Not all SAF is created equal. The term covers three distinct production pathways with different feedstocks, costs, and carbon intensities.

HEFA: Hydroprocessed Esters and Fatty Acids

HEFA is the most commercially mature SAF pathway. It converts fats, oils, and greases — including used cooking oil, tallow, and purpose-grown oil crops — into SAF through hydroprocessing. Certification under ASTM D7566 for up to 50% blend with conventional jet fuel has been in place since 2011. Air France, easyJet, and Lufthansa have all flown commercial routes using HEFA-based SAF blends.

TotalEnergies’ La Mède biorefinery near Marseille is the flagship French HEFA facility. Converted from crude oil refining in 2019 at a capital cost of approximately €275 million, La Mède can produce approximately 500,000 tonnes per year of biofuels including SAF, biodiesel, and bionaphtha. The refinery processes hydrogenated vegetable oils and used cooking oil. TotalEnergies has committed to increasing La Mède’s SAF output under France 2030 incentive structures. The facility is Europe’s largest dedicated biorefinery.

Avril Group’s SAIPOL subsidiary, France’s leading oilseed processing company, operates several French facilities capable of HEFA SAF production from rapeseed oil and sunflower oil. SAIPOL has partnered with industrial biotechnology companies to develop second-generation oil crops with lower land-use impacts. France 2030 supports SAIPOL’s SAF investments through the ADEME (Ecological Transition Agency) competitive funding programmes.

The HEFA pathway faces a fundamental limitation: feedstock. Used cooking oil and tallow are finite and already in high demand for road transport biofuels and chemical production. Expanding HEFA to meet 6% SAF mandates requires either purpose-grown energy crops (with land-use change implications) or entirely new feedstock streams. France 2030’s SAF strategy allocates separate funding for advanced feedstock development — specifically algae-based oils and camelina cover crops — that can supplement HEFA supply without displacing food production.

AtJ: Alcohol-to-Jet (Fischer-Tropsch)

The Fischer-Tropsch pathway converts biomass (agricultural residues, forestry waste, municipal solid waste) into synthesis gas, then into synthetic hydrocarbons chemically equivalent to jet fuel. France has significant agricultural residue streams — approximately 35 million tonnes per year of cereal straw, corn stover, and sugar beet pulp — that could feed Fischer-Tropsch SAF plants. Biopropulsion, a French SAF startup backed by Bpifrance funding, is developing Fischer-Tropsch technology specifically for French agricultural residue feedstocks. The company targets commercial production at Dunkirk from 2027, with initial capacity of 50,000 tonnes per year scaling to 200,000 tonnes.

Fischer-Tropsch SAF can be certified for 100% unblended use (neat fuel) under ASTM standards being developed by ASTM International in partnership with EASA, Airbus, and Boeing. If neat fuel certification is achieved — expected by 2026-2027 — Fischer-Tropsch facilities can supply 100% SAF flights without blending constraints.

PtL: Power-to-Liquid (Synthetic E-Fuels)

Power-to-Liquid is the most strategically important and most expensive SAF pathway. PtL uses renewable electricity to produce green hydrogen via electrolysis, then combines the hydrogen with captured CO2 (from direct air capture or point-source industrial emissions) to synthesise liquid hydrocarbons through Fischer-Tropsch conversion. The resulting e-fuel has near-zero lifecycle carbon intensity when produced from renewable electricity and atmospheric CO2.

PtL SAF is also currently the most expensive energy technology in commercial production: estimates range from €3.50 to €8.00 per litre, compared to conventional jet fuel at approximately €0.60-0.80 per litre and HEFA SAF at €1.50-2.50 per litre. France 2030 allocates dedicated funding for PtL demonstration plants, recognising that the ReFuelEU 35% e-fuel mandate for 2050 requires production infrastructure that takes 10-15 years to develop. Without France 2030 co-funding, no private investor would absorb the PtL cost curve during the demonstration phase.

TotalEnergies and Engie are the primary French industrial actors developing PtL technology. Both are pursuing separate France 2030 competition awards for e-fuel pilot plants in the 10,000-50,000 tonne per year range. A positive final investment decision on a PtL pilot before 2027 would establish France as the European leader in a technology that will define aviation fuel supply post-2040.

French Production Landscape: Current and Planned Capacity

France’s 2030 target of 10% SAF blending for Air France (the airline’s self-imposed commitment, ahead of the EU mandate) requires approximately 500,000-700,000 tonnes of SAF per year for French departure flights alone. Current French SAF production is approximately 150,000-200,000 tonnes per year (La Mède plus smaller facilities). The gap is substantial — a 2.5x to 4x increase in domestic production required by 2030.

France 2030 is funding this capacity build-out through four channels:

ADEME SAF competitions: Six competition rounds between 2022 and 2025 have allocated approximately €400 million in grants and repayable advances to SAF production scale-up projects. Winners include TotalEnergies (La Mède expansion), SAIPOL (new HEFA facility at Rouen), and multiple Fischer-Tropsch startups.
Bpifrance innovation loans: Startups and mid-caps developing novel SAF technologies have access to Bpifrance’s innovation loan programme at below-market rates, with France 2030 capitalisation. Biopropulsion, Ynna (waste-to-SAF), and several stealth-stage companies have accessed this facility.
Infrastructure grants: DGAC manages a €150 million envelope for airport SAF infrastructure: dedicated SAF storage tanks, distribution systems, and blending facilities. Aéroports de Paris has committed to SAF distribution infrastructure at CDG and Orly by 2026.
R&D for next-generation pathways: IFPEN (Institut Français du Pétrole Énergies Nouvelles, the French applied energy research institute) receives France 2030 funding for algae-to-SAF and municipal waste conversion research.

Air France SAF Strategy: Airline-Level Commitment

Air France-KLM has the most ambitious SAF commitment of any major carrier: a binding target of 10% SAF across all flights by 2030, rising to 63% by 2050. The group has signed long-term SAF supply agreements with TotalEnergies (500,000 tonnes over 10 years from 2022), Neste (200,000 tonnes per year), and SkyNRG (Netherlands-based SAF specialist for KLM). Air France specifically is developing a “SAF-first” fuelling programme at CDG for its long-haul widebody fleet by 2025.

The financial reality is challenging. SAF costs Air France approximately €2.50 per litre versus €0.70 for conventional fuel — a €1.80 per litre premium that adds roughly €400-500 to the cost of a long-haul return flight. Currently, airlines absorb this premium through corporate SAF surcharges (Air France charges corporate clients a green tariff), EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) allowance savings, and brand positioning. As SAF scales and the ETS carbon price increases (currently €50-70 per tonne CO2, expected to reach €100-150 by 2030), the economics improve substantially.

France 2030 does not subsidise airline SAF purchases directly — European state aid rules prevent direct operational subsidies. However, the production-side subsidies (which reduce SAF manufacturing costs) and the infrastructure grants (which reduce airport logistics costs) indirectly improve the airline economics.

Cost Trajectory: When Does SAF Become Competitive?

The SAF cost curve is the central variable in France 2030’s aviation strategy. The pathway to competitiveness runs through three mechanisms:

Scale effects: SAF plants exhibit significant economies of scale. A facility producing 500,000 tonnes per year has approximately 40% lower unit costs than a 50,000 tonne per year facility. France 2030’s strategy — funding large-scale facilities rather than distributing small grants widely — is designed to capture these scale effects rapidly.

Carbon pricing: The EU ETS covers aviation within Europe. As the carbon price rises toward €100+ per tonne (the EU’s working assumption for 2030 planning), conventional jet fuel becomes more expensive while SAF’s lifecycle advantage becomes a cost advantage rather than a cost penalty. At €150 per tonne CO2, the breakeven economics between HEFA SAF and conventional fuel with ETS costs narrow to approximately €0.30-0.50 per litre premium — commercially manageable.

Feedstock innovation: The HEFA feedstock constraint can be partially resolved by technological innovation in oil extraction from novel sources. France 2030 funds algae cultivation research (INRAE and several startups), camelina breeding for aviation-optimised oil yield, and wood waste pyrolysis technology. If any of these feedstocks reaches commercial scale by 2030, HEFA SAF production economics improve substantially.

The Global Race: France vs. the United States

The United States has moved aggressively on SAF under the Inflation Reduction Act’s Sustainable Aviation Fuel Tax Credit (SAF-IRA). Companies producing SAF in the US receive a $1.25-$1.75 per gallon tax credit, depending on lifecycle carbon intensity. This is a production incentive that directly lowers the cost of US SAF production — and potentially threatens to make US SAF cheaper than European SAF even after shipping costs.

France’s response is tactical: prioritise advanced SAF pathways (Fischer-Tropsch, PtL) where US production is less developed, and emphasise the regulatory certainty of the ReFuelEU mandate as a demand signal that US SAF cannot rely on equivalently. France 2030’s €1 billion SAF investment is smaller in absolute terms than the US IRA SAF credit (estimated at $4-6 billion annually by 2030 at full utilisation), but is more strategically targeted toward proprietary technologies that create lasting competitive advantage.

The critical strategic outcome is not who produces the most SAF by 2030 — it is who holds the intellectual property, certified processes, and supply chain relationships for the 2040s when SAF must scale from millions to hundreds of millions of tonnes per year. France 2030 is playing that longer game.