On January 20, 2024, Jun Heng Biotechnology’s sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) achieved a significant milestone as its sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) received airworthiness approval from the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC). This marks the first instance of a private refinery obtaining official airworthiness approval, enabling commercial use.
The Jun Heng Biotechnology is located in Puyang Industrial Park, Henan province. The company utilizes used cooking oil (UCO) or oil derived from municipal, agricultural and forestry waste as a feedstock for SAF. The company plans to enhance its SAF production capacity to 400,000 tonnes annually by 2025. It anticipates reaching a production volume of 137,000 tonnes in 2024.
In early January 2024, the company conducted SAF performance and functional tests on the auxiliary power unit batch, with all test results compliant with the National No.3 jet fuel standard, GB 6537-2018. Additionally, the company achieved the first successful engine test run using 100% SAF in China.
It's noteworthy that, as of now, the Chinese government has not implemented a specific SAF standard in the country. Therefore, all SAF applied to aircraft must adhere to the GB 6537-2018 standard.
Over ten companies have disclosed their SAF production capacities, with the majority being producers of fatty acid methyl ester (FAME) based biodiesel. The table below shows the announced production capacities of these 10 SAF producers.
Ten SAF producers announced production capacity
SAF producer |
Production capacity (tonnes/year) |
Beijing Haixin Energy |
15,000 |
Ecoceres Zhangjiagang |
50,000 |
Zhuoyue New Energy |
100,000 |
Hi-Tech Spring Shandong |
50,000 |
Jiaao New Energy Jiangsu |
1,000,000 |
Sichuan Jinshang Environmental Protection Technology |
400,000 |
Sinopec Zhenhai Refining & Chemical |
80,000 |
Oriental Energy Maoming city |
1,000,000 |
Jun Heng Biotechnology |
400,000 |
State Power Investment Corporation Limited (SPIC) |
400,000 |
Source: SGS INSPIRE, 2024
The Chinese government initiated the development of bio-based aviation fuel in 2009 and conducted pilot tests in 2013, 2015, and 2017.
In 2022, the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) granted the first sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) airworthiness approval to the state-owned petroleum company, Sinopec Zhenhai Refinery. This authorization permits the company to sell its produced SAF to China's civil aviation companies. (More details on the Sinopec Zhenhai refinery, please refer to )