RTÉ News has posed a question now sitting on the desks of refiners, treasury teams and the European Commission's DG MOVE: can green jet fuel take off fast enough? The framing crystallises a supply question that the European Union's ReFuelEU Aviation regulation made urgent when it entered force on 1 January 2025.

The regulation requires fuel suppliers to blend 2% Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) into every litre of jet fuel uplifted at EU airports. The mandate steps up to 6% by 2030, 20% by 2035 and 70% by 2050. Whether the industry can deliver against that trajectory is no longer an academic question.

What supply gap does the mandate create?

EU SAF obligations run ahead of installed production. The bloc's 2025 obligation — 2% of roughly 60 to 70 million tonnes of annual jet fuel demand — implies demand in the order of 1.2 to 1.4 million tonnes of SAF. Reaching 6% by 2030 would push that figure toward 3.6 to 4.2 million tonnes, depending on traffic recovery and fuel burn.

Several plants anchor today's European supply. Neste operates a major SAF facility at Rotterdam; TotalEnergies runs the La Mède plant in southern France; SkyNRG is developing additional Dutch capacity. New project announcements, however, have slowed as inflation, elevated capital costs and feedstock pricing pressure project economics.

What bottlenecks hold production back?

Feedstock is the first constraint. Used cooking oil, tallow and agricultural residues cover today's SAF output, but available volumes are finite. Synthetic fuels made from green hydrogen and captured carbon — e-SAF — promise a much larger resource base, but require renewable electricity at scale and capital outlays that typically exceed €1 billion per commercial-scale facility.

Offtake pricing is the second. SAF trades at a multiple of the price of conventional Jet A1. Mandate-driven demand obliges suppliers to pay the premium or accept a penalty, with the cost ultimately flowing to airlines and passengers.

Certification is the third. Each new SAF pathway must secure approval under ASTM D7566 or the equivalent ICAO framework, a multi-year process that constrains how quickly new feedstock routes reach commercial output.

Where do the airlines sit?

Major European carriers have signed multi-year offtake agreements with Neste, Shell, TotalEnergies and OMV. IAG, Lufthansa Group, Air France-KLM, Ryanair and easyJet have publicly disclosed SAF purchase volumes or percentage targets. Those commitments, however, cover single-digit percentages of annual fuel burn. Reaching mandate levels requires orders of magnitude more fuel at competitive prices.

What happens if supply falls short?

ReFuelEU includes a penalty mechanism: suppliers that fail to deliver the mandated SAF blend pay a financial penalty per percentage point of shortfall, calibrated to the gap between SAF and conventional kerosene prices. Airlines unable to uplift SAF owing to supply unavailability may apply for exemptions, but the regime is narrow and case-by-case.

Whether the penalty cost, the exemption framework or sustained airline demand pulls new SAF capacity online faster than current trajectories suggest remains the open question. RTÉ's framing mirrors a debate now running through the European Commission's impact assessments, the IATA Stocktake process and the annual reports of Europe's refining majors.