Enilive and easyJet sign agreements for supply of sustainable aviation fuel in Italy

Enilive has announced a new agreement with easyJet, Europe's leading airline, to supply a number of flights from Milan Malpensa Airport with Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF).

The SAF purchased by easyJet, which has a purity of 20% and is blended with conventional jet, enables the airline to meet its requirements for flights on its two new routes to Norway (Malpensa-Oslo and Malpensa-Tromsø) over the winter season.

Furthermore, the airline will benefit from SEA's SAF Support Program 2024, which has provided a contribution of 800 euros/ton to carriers that use this fuel at Milan's airports during the year, with a total value of 500,000 euros.

Enilive, Eni’s division dedicated to mobility services and products, and easyJet have also signed a Letter of Intent for a potential additional supply of about 30,000 tonnes of pure Enilive SAF at other Italian airports where the airline operates.

Decarbonising aviation

The agreement follows a series of recent commitments easyJet has made to help stimulate growth of the SAF market. Earlier this month the airline, alongside its partner Airbus, launched a new business travel solution that will explore corporate partnerships to finance the use of SAF with the goal of minimising their economic impact and thus making this solution more affordable, Eni said in a statement.

In addition, at the end of October easyJet formally joined Project SkyPower, CEO-led consortium aiming to accelerate the growth of the eSAF industry by helping unlock Final Investment Decisions for e-SAF projects in Europe.

SAF is a key tool, that is already available, to support the decarbonisation path of aviation, and it will play an increasingly relevant role in the future, Eni said.

“Today, SAF is the available solution to help decarbonise air transport,” said Stefano Ballista, Enilive’s Chief Executive Officer. “In the future, following the implementation of the European Union's ReFuelEU regulation, which calls for a gradual increase of pure SAF input to 70% by 2050, there will be an increasingly more significant demand by operators such as easyJet, which is credited with being ahead of its time as it has already begun to use our SAF. To meet the market needs, we are developing new biorefining projects in Italy and abroad,” he added.

In its biorefineries in Italy, Enilive processes mainly waste feedstocks such as used cooking oil, animal fats, and agribusiness residues to produce SAF, which contains 100% biogenic component and is suitable to be blended with conventional jet up to 50%. From 2025, Enilive will reach a pure SAF production capacity of 400,000 tons/year, thanks to the imminent startup of the first plant in the Gela biorefinery, and thereafter the company will increase its SAF production to 1 million tons/year by 2026 with a further potential doubling by 2030.

Raminder Shergill, Director of Tax & Fuel Strategy at easyJet, said: “SAF is key to our decarbonisation strategy and will play a vital role in helping the aviation sector achieve its net zero ambitions. We are therefore delighted to be working with Enilive and with our key partner Sea to sign this agreement and hope it provides another positive signal to stimulate further growth of the SAF industry.”