Jet Fuel Market Research

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Per rimanere competitive, le compagnie aeree devono essere in prima linea nelle tecnologie emergenti e nelle mutevoli condizioni del mercato mentre lavorano per diventare più sostenibili. Il consumo di carburante di questo settore è un fattore importante nel trasporto globale che ha notevoli implicazioni ambientali.

Pertanto, la ricerca di mercato sul carburante per aerei è uno strumento cruciale che aiuta a garantire il successo del processo decisionale aziendale. Implica la raccolta, l’analisi e l’interpretazione dei dati relativi alle tendenze del carburante per aerei, alle mosse della concorrenza e alle esigenze dei clienti. Con questa ricerca, le aziende possono andare avanti con sicurezza sapendo di essere pienamente informate sugli sviluppi del mercato e sulle preferenze del loro pubblico.

Table of Contents

Jet Fuel Market Research: How Leading Aviation Players Capture the SAF Opportunity

Jet fuel market research has shifted from a procurement exercise to a strategic intelligence function. Carriers, refiners, and corporate flight departments now compete on feedstock access, offtake structuring, and the credibility of decarbonization commitments. The winners are reading the market with a sharper lens.

The fundamentals remain familiar. Jet A and Jet A-1 still set the spec. Crack spreads still dictate refiner economics. What has changed is the layering of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) mandates, book-and-claim accounting, and corporate scope 3 pressure on top of conventional kerosene flows. Jet fuel market research now has to model both barrels and certificates simultaneously.

The SAF Pathway Premium and What Drives It

SAF is not one product. It is a pathway-defined fuel governed by ASTM D7566 annexes covering HEFA, alcohol-to-jet, Fischer-Tropsch, and synthesized iso-paraffins. Each pathway carries a different feedstock dependency, a different carbon intensity score under CORSIA and ReFuelEU Aviation, and a different cost curve. Treating SAF as a single line item in a fuel forecast obscures where the margin actually sits.

HEFA dominates current supply because used cooking oil and tallow feedstocks are commercially available. The constraint is feedstock, not capacity. Neste, World Energy, and Montana Renewables are running at or near nameplate, while announced expansions from TotalEnergies, Phillips 66, and Marathon depend on securing waste-oil aggregation networks across Asia and Latin America. The competitive question is who locks up feedstock corridors before margins compress.

Alcohol-to-jet, advanced by LanzaJet, opens ethanol-rich geographies including Brazil and the US Midwest. Power-to-liquid, the Fischer-Tropsch route using captured CO2 and green hydrogen, sits further out on the cost curve but receives the strongest policy preference under European sub-mandates. SIS International Research finds that procurement teams underweight pathway diversification when modeling supply security, leaving them exposed when a single feedstock category tightens or loses regulatory standing.

Where Jet Fuel Market Research Creates Pricing Leverage

Conventional jet fuel pricing tracks Platts Jet CIF NWE, USGC pipeline, and Singapore MOPS benchmarks, with into-plane differentials negotiated airport by airport. Sophisticated buyers separate the molecule cost, the logistics premium, and the supplier margin in every contract. Less sophisticated buyers accept blended quotes and lose visibility into which lever to pull.

SAF contracting introduces three additional variables: the green premium, the environmental attribute (RIN, LCFS credit, or RED II proof of sustainability), and the book-and-claim allocation. A well-structured offtake separates these components so the buyer can monetize attributes in the highest-value compliance market while taking physical delivery where logistics make sense. Bundled contracts hide value transfer to the supplier.

The named precedents are instructive. JetBlue’s multi-year SAF agreements, Lufthansa Group’s corporate SAF program with SAP and Deutsche Post DHL, and United’s Eco-Skies Alliance all unbundle the attribute from the molecule. That structure is now the reference architecture for serious corporate flight programs.

The Demand Side Aviation Decision-Makers Are Modeling

Demand intelligence in aviation fuel runs through three buyer archetypes: network carriers optimizing fleet-wide cost per available seat kilometer, cargo operators including FedEx and UPS managing fuel as a pass-through, and corporate flight departments under board-level scope 3 scrutiny. Each archetype values SAF differently, and a single market sizing that blends them produces unusable output.

In B2B expert interviews conducted by SIS with senior fuel procurement, sustainability, and network planning executives across North America, Europe, and the Gulf, the gap between stated SAF commitments and contracted volumes consistently tracks above 60 percent. The opportunity is not in narrowing intent. It is in building offtake structures that close the gap on terms favorable to the buyer.

Corporate buyers are the most underserved segment. They face investor and customer pressure to decarbonize business travel but lack the procurement infrastructure of an airline. The firms that win this segment package SAF certificates with verification, reporting, and GHG Protocol-aligned attestations. The product is trust, not fuel.

Regulatory Architecture Shaping the Forward Curve

ReFuelEU Aviation imposes escalating SAF blending obligations at EU airports with a sub-mandate for synthetic fuels. The UK SAF mandate runs in parallel with a separate trajectory. CORSIA governs international aviation emissions with a baseline and offsetting framework that interacts with, but does not replicate, the EU ETS coverage of intra-European flights. The US relies on the Inflation Reduction Act’s 40B and 45Z credits to pull supply through tax incentive rather than mandate.

The asymmetry matters. European demand is mandate-driven and price-inelastic up to the buy-out level. US supply is incentive-driven and feedstock-elastic. That structural mismatch creates transatlantic arbitrage that refiners with dual-coast operations are positioned to capture. Jet fuel market research that ignores the policy interaction misses the central commercial dynamic.

The SIS Approach to Aviation Fuel Intelligence

SIS International Research applies competitive intelligence, B2B expert interviews, and market entry assessments to aviation fuel questions across refining, distribution, and end-buyer segments. The work spans feedstock supply mapping in Southeast Asia and Latin America, into-plane logistics benchmarking at hub airports, and voice-of-customer programs with corporate flight departments evaluating SAF procurement.

SIS International’s proprietary research in aviation fuel indicates that the most defensible commercial positions are built by players who treat SAF, conventional jet, and emissions attributes as a single integrated portfolio rather than three separate businesses. Integrated portfolio thinking is the differentiator that separates leaders from followers.

SIS Aviation Fuel Intelligence Framework

Source: SIS International Research

What Leading Players Do Differently

The conventional approach treats jet fuel as a commodity input and SAF as a sustainability line item. The leading approach treats the combined fuel-and-attribute system as a margin opportunity. Carriers that hedge feedstock exposure, refiners that secure waste-oil aggregation, and corporates that contract attributes with verification ahead of mandate inflection points are building positions competitors will spend years trying to replicate.

The signal in jet fuel market research is no longer the headline barrel price. It is the relative movement of pathway-specific carbon intensity scores, feedstock availability, and the policy buy-out levels that cap mandate cost. Reading those three together is the analytical edge.

A proposito di SIS Internazionale

SIS Internazionale offre ricerca quantitativa, qualitativa e strategica. Forniamo dati, strumenti, strategie, report e approfondimenti per il processo decisionale. Conduciamo anche interviste, sondaggi, focus group e altri metodi e approcci di ricerca di mercato. Contattaci per il tuo prossimo progetto di ricerca di mercato.