Plantations International News

Oslo Airport in Norway has become the world’s first airport to offer jet biofuel to all airlines through the normal supply mechanism.

The biofuel, produced from the Camelina plant, is supplied by oil giant BP’s aviation division Air BP and Lufthansa Group, SAS, and KLM have already signed agreements to purchase the fuel.

Air BP has entered into an agreement to deliver of 1.25 million litres of fuel to Oslo Airport with a goal to gradually increase the volume and establish regular commercial delivery.

Avinor, the managing company of Norway’s state-owned airports, and Air BP say the beginning of biofuel deliveries at Oslo represents the start of a trend toward making jet biofuel an interesting commercial option worldwide.

David Gilmour, CEO at Air BP, said delivering the biofuel through the normal supply mechanism reduces logistics costs significantly.

“We want to demonstrate that airports can readily access biofuel with relative ease, utilising existing physical infrastructure. We anticipate that this will increase interest and demand, as well as contributing to a sustainable biofuel future for the aviation sector,” Gilmour said.

Air BP will receive the first delivery of drop-in jet biofuel from Finland-based Neste Porvoo via SkyNrg, a broker specialising in procuring and delivering biofuel.

With Lufthansa, SAS, and KLM on-board, Air BP and Avinor hope that more airlines will also join the biofuels programme.

‘Significant greenhouse gas reductions’

“Biofuel is one of the few alternatives we have at our disposal today that can help achieve significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from aviation, provided that the biofuel is produced in a sustainable manner,” said Norway’s Minister of Climate and Environment Vidar Helgesen.

Airlines that take part are rewarded with lower CO2 taxes on domestic flights in Norway and biofuel is also exempted from the EU quota system.

Aviation biofuel is currently only produced in small quantities and costs more to produce than fossil jet fuel, but prices are expected to fall as demand rises.

The Avinor/Air BP initiative is in line with the aviation industry’s self-appointed environmental targets of achieving climate-neutral growth by 2020 and a 50% reduction in emissions by 2050, compared with the 2005 level.

The EU has set a target for 3.5% of all aviation fuel to be biofuel by 2020.

Biofuels Plantations International