The big one
September 2025 brought yet another announcement about Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) in the Tees Valley. This time it was a big one. Tees Valley Mayor Ben Houchen flew to Saudi Arabia to announce, among other things, that Alfanar would be investing £2bn in a SAF project at Seal Sands in Billingham. That’s an impressive number. Or at least it will be if it ever gets off the drawing board.
Fake Sheikh
Some cynics might argue that Houchen flew to the middle east to draw attention from the fact that he’s been caught in a lie over another Saudi Arabian firm, Sabic. After the closure of the Olefins 6 cracker at Wilton, he’d reassured Teesside that “We’re working directly with Sabic at the moment on trying to help them around employee support”, when he’d done no such thing.
Tell me another
But when it comes to Alfanar’s Lighthouse Green Fuel (LGF) project, Teessiders will feel that they’ve heard this story before. And they have, several times. It was first announced more than four years ago. This was in August 2021, as a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between Alfanar and BP. A few months later, in March 2022, Ben Houchen announced that Alfanar would be investing a mere £1bn in the project, creating 700 jobs.
Think of a number, then double it
This time round, Houchen claims that Alfanar has doubled the investment at LGF to £2bn and more than doubled the number of promised jobs to 2,000. You can read more here. And, as is common with these hyperbolic press statements, Ben Houchen was careful not to announce a timescale.
Getting on with the job?
In June 2022, Alfanar gave an impression that LGF was underway, and would be producing SAF by 2027. Not only that, it promised to build another two SAF plants.
Fast forward to May 2024, and Alfanar was holding a public consultation. This time they increased the total of promised jobs at LGF from 700 to 840. But they didn’t inflate the investment amount this time, sticking with £1bn.
There is a magic money tree after all?
So, zero SAF from the company to date, and for the foreseeable future. But, it has refined its method of extracting public funding. In December 2021, Alfanar achieved a £2.4mn win in the “Green Fuels, Green Skies” competition organised by the Department for Transport (DfT). Less than a year later it was given a grant of £11mn from the DfT’s Advanced Fuels Fund (AFF). This was followed by a further £8.7mn in November 2023 and, finally, £8mn in July 2025 from the same funding pot.
But wait, there’s more
LGF is just one of six SAF projects that has been announced for Teesside over the past four years. And, despite the almost ceaseless flurry of press releases and photo opportunities since then, they haven’t produced a single drop of SAF between them. So, what is stalling these projects? Here’s a guide to the proposals, and the companies behind them:
Abundia
Texas-based Abundia e-fuels, also known as Jet – AB2L, intends to produce SAF from sawmill and forestry residues. However, there are serious doubts about the sustainability of this feedstock. Just as with Alfanar, Abundia has received grant funding from the AFF. It received £4.5mn in November 2023. The DfT re-announced this grant in July 2025. The DfT also predicted that Abundia’s SAF plant at Wilton International will go online in 2026.
Arcadia e-Fuels
Arcadia, another Texas-based firm, received £12.3mn in AFF funding in November 2023. But things have gone quiet since that grant was announced two years ago. And Arcadia has never stated exactly where it intends to build its Teesside SAF plant. The company intends to convert biogenic CO2 and green hydrogen into SAF. However, the green hydrogen won’t be available now due to the cancellation of BP’s HyGreen project. There’s an acute shortage of CO2 too. This scheme, also known as Project NABOO, is a long shot.
Nova Pangaea Technologies
Nova Pangaea’s plans are known as Project Speedbird, a nod to UK aviation history. The company is registered as LanzaJet UK Ltd. The sole director of this company is based in Illinois. Nova Pangaea built a demonstration SAF plant at Wilton International as long ago as February 2021. But, curiously, a July 2025 press release from the DfT states that the plant is still in development. In its 2023 announcement, the TVCA claimed that the plant was expected to be operational in 2025.
Hat Trick
Nova Pangaea has scored three times with the DfT. Firstly, £480,000 from the “Green Fuels, Green Skies” competition in December 2021, followed by AFF grants of £9mn in November 2023, and £10mn in July 2025. This is another project that intends to process woody residues. Sustainability isn’t guaranteed at Nova Pangaea if, indeed, it ever operates.
Willis Sustainable Fuels
Willis’ project is known as “Carbonshift Power-to-Liquid”. The company intends to build a plant at Dorman Point near Grangetown. The plan is to convert CO2 and green hydrogen into SAF. Again, the lack of available green hydrogen and CO2 must call the viability of this project into question. At the time that Willis received its AFF grant of £4.7mn in November 2023, it predicted an initial production start date of 2026. But a more recent press release has pushed this back to 2028.
SkyFuel Teesside
ETFuels’ project “SkyFuel Teesside” is a latecomer to the party. It’s yet another Texas-based company. However, the company website lists a registered address in Dublin, Ireland. It lists its Teesside project as being in “Redcar”, which probably means Wilton International. Yes, it’s another recipient of AFF cash, having received £5mn in July 2025. ETFuels intends to produce “methanol to jet” using biogenic CO2 and green hydrogen into SAF. A pattern is emerging here. Good luck sourcing the CO2 and the green hydrogen.
Keep on trucking
Something that the proponents of Teesside SAF never mention is the logistics of their operation. In terms of SAF plants using wood residues, this means hundreds of lorry journeys each week delivering feedstock. The finished SAF then has to be trucked to the nearest refinery for blending with fossil fuel. That’s in Immingham, 125 miles away. The blended aviation fuel will then be taken by lorry to airports throughout the country.
So what’s the national picture?
The DfT published an SAF Mandate in December 2024, which obliges “the supply of an increasing amount of SAF in the overall UK aviation fuel mix”. The mandate started in January 2025. SAF is expected to meet 2% of total UK jet fuel demand this year, “increasing linearly to 10% in 2030 and then to 22% in 2040.”
Falling behind
But the industry is struggling to meet its first target, with SAF having only supplied 1.29% of the aviation fuel mix in the first half of this year. In some months, the supply of SAF is almost negligible. The table below has been produced from statistics released by the DfT on 14 August 2025. A link to the data can be found here.
Don’t put all of your eggs in one basket
According to the Royal Aeronautical Society, “as of early 2025, the UK only has one industrial-scale SAF refinery facility. Owned by Phillips 66 and located in Humberside since 2017, the facility produces fuel from sustainable waste feedstocks.” Will Teesside’s six SAF plants ride to the rescue?
Missed SAF targets – does it matter?
So, does it matter if the UK misses its SAF targets? Well, for anyone concerned about the devastating impact of aviation on climate change, it’s bad news. But, tackling climate change isn’t the point of SAF. Even if the SAF targets are met, they’ll be made irrelevant by the exponential growth of air travel.
Greenwashing
The real intention seems to be to fool everyone that the industry is serious about tackling the problem. If people believe that it will be solved by Richard Branson flying from Heathrow to Amsterdam in a jet fuelled with babassu nuts and coconuts, the feelgood nonsense is working a treat. But, anyone who ever says that aviation fuel can be sustainable is lying to themselves and everybody else.
CLICK HERE TO DONATE TO OUR CROWDFUNDER
HELP US BECOME STRONGER SO THAT WE CAN CONTINUE TO DELIVER POWERFUL CITIZEN JOURNALISM!
