Delta Air Lines and Flint Hills Resources are in the early stages of developing a facility to blend up to 30 million gallons of neat sustainable aviation fuel at the Pine Bend refinery in Rosemount, Minn., the carrier announced Thursday.
The SAF blending facility would be one outcome of the Minnesota SAF Hub created in August 2023, in which Delta was an anchor member along with the Greater MSP Partnership, Bank of America, Ecolab and Xcel Energy. The facility would be one of three in the U.S. that would be able to blend SAF with conventional jet fuel, according to Delta.
Shell would supply the neat SAF, and Flint Hills would blend the fuel and deliver it via an existing pipeline to the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport. The facility is projected to be completed in late 2025, according to Delta.
In addition, a “demand consortium” that includes Bank of America, Deloitte, Delta and Ecolab formed to purchase the “first several million gallons” of SAF each year, starting in the second half of 2025. The group aims to scale production, drive down costs and secure multi-year demand that spurs the continued growth of the SAF market, according to Delta.
Further, on Aug. 16, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration announced a $16.8 million Inflation Reduction Act grant to convert an existing Gevo fuel facility in Luverne, Minn., into a fully integrated alcohol-to-jet fuel facility for SAF production, according to Delta, allowing the first conversion of Minnesota crops to SAF within the state.
“While Delta has committed to purchasing millions of gallons of SAF, there isn’t enough being produced today to fuel the world’s commercial airlines for a single week,” Delta EVP of external affairs Peter Carter said in a statement. “That’s why this blending facility is so important—it’s like hanging an ‘Open for Business’ sign to SAF producers to consider doing business in Minnesota, where we see SAF as a great opportunity for all players across the value chain.”
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