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Airbus has again urged the federal Government to implement a mandate on sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) use to avoid a fuel crisis and meet climate goals.
Stephen Forshaw, the planemaker’s chief representative for Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific, said the government should impose a SAF blending mandate of around 1 to 2 per cent to stimulate biofuel production, give Australia more sovereign fuel reserves, and cut emissions.
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Australia currently imports around seven billion litres of jet fuel per year, with 70 per cent coming from China, Malaysia, and Singapore; China alone accounts for 25 per cent of the total.
“If we don’t move quickly to seize this opportunity, we run a real risk that the future will be made in Singapore, not Australia,” he said, as reported by The Australian Financial Review, which also notes that Singapore can produce around one billion litres of biofuel annually.
“We want to use our feedstock here to produce fuels here, power our industry here and capture the economic and security benefits here.
“We can’t afford to default to what we’ve been historically pretty good at in Australia – exporting our raw commodities for others to process. Doing this, we simply export the opportunity to others.”
According to Forshaw, while the global trade environment has been favourable for Australia’s fuel supply, that may no longer be a reliable assumption.
“Cross-border supply chains grew during times when the benefits of globalisation were understood. Their resilience is being increasingly challenged by growing nationalism, protectionist trade policies and security challenges,” he said.
“Fuel underpins energy and transport, and powers our wider economies – literally.”
Airbus and Qantas earlier this year jointly invested $15 million into a climate-focused venture capital fund, Climate Tech Partners (CTP), which will work with corporate backers to develop solutions targeted at specific industry needs.
The money will form a new vehicle alongside CTP’s main fund and will prioritise the development of SAF, feedstock development, and other related technologies.
It marks the latest step in Qantas and Airbus’ wider US$200 million joint initiative launched in 2022, aimed at fast-tracking SAF production, with Qantas in 2023 also calling for SAF blending mandates.
The office of Transport Minister Catherine King has been contacted for comment.
