Galp to produce green aviation fuel

The Portuguese gas and oil company Galp says it will begin producing sustainable or green aviation fuel in Portugal.

The announcement was made by the company’s CEO Andy Brown at a ceremony that marked the start of a partnership between Galp, TAP and ANA – Aeroportos de Portugal which have joined forces to develop, produce and supply green aviation fuel on an industrial scale.
Also known as SAF (Sustainable Aviation Fuel), it can be produced from a variety of sustainable resources, also known as feedstocks. This includes forestry and agricultural waste, used cooking oil, carbon captured from the air, and green hydrogen.
“Galp will not only be a supplier of these fuels. Galp will be a manufacturer in future and early next year we aim to begin building our own project. A project with a capacity to produce 240,000 tonnes of fuel in a project on a global scale”, he said.
The green fuel production plant is likely to be installed at Sines. Andy Brown recognises that the “development of SAF will be expensive in terms of capital outlay”.
Brown also said that the fuels were based on matter of an organic origin, but when the necessary raw materials become scarce, the company will focus on e-Fuels which are non-biological.
eFuels are produced with the help of electricity from renewable energy sources, water and CO2 from the air. In contrast to conventional fuels, they do not release additional CO2 but are climate neutral in the entire balance.  However, these are “more complex and even more expensive” to produce.
TAP CEO Christine Ourmières-Widener said at the event that it is “still too early to grasp the economic implications of these fuels, emphasising that the “cost of fuels today will only provide an incentive for more diverse solutions” but warned “these have to make economical sense and we will have these discussions with our partners”.
Andy Brown said that the goal was to “have these fuels at competitive prices, accessible to consumers”.
Galp posted profits of €420 million for the first six months of the year. Its EBITDA increased by 97% to €2.1Bn for the first six months of the year. The company’s refining margin went up to US$22.3 per barrel in the second quarter.