International Airline Group (IAG), the parent company of British Airways, Iberia, Aer Lingus and Vueling, has announced an investment in sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) company Nova Pangaea Technologies (NPT).
Nova Pangaea Technologies aims to produce SAF out of non-food organic feedstock at a new plant it is building in Teesside in the Northeast of England. The energy company aims to use agricultural residues and wood to produce bio-methanol.
This plant, called NOVAONE, is going to be the first of this type to start production in the UK.
The collaboration between IAG and Nova Pangaea is not new. In November 2022, it was announced that the two companies plus American SAF producer Lanzajet would join forces on Project Speedbird to produce 102 million liters of SAF per year in the UK, with British Airways taking up the entire production.
This amount of SAF can reduce CO2 emissions on a net lifecycle basis, by 230,000 tons a year or the equivalent of 26,000 UK domestic flights.
IAG aims to use 10% SAF by 2030 and has so far been actively investing in the nascent SAF industry. The airline group also has outstanding SAF uptake commitments worth a combined $865 million and it is already an investor in Lanzajet, one of the leading firms in the development of Alcohol-to-Jet (ATJ) production technologies.
