地沟油飞上天：SAF产能竞速，两条技术路线同时起跑used cooking oil (UCO) flying into the sky: SAF capacity race, two technical routes starting simultaneously

Gao Zhilong

The fate of waste cooking oil has been completely rewritten over the past two years. In the past, it either flowed downstream into feed and chemical industries, or, due to regulatory gaps, caused food safety controversies; today, it has been incorporated into the aviation industry's carbon reduction roadmap, becoming the main raw material for sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). used cooking oil (UCO) flying into the sky has transformed from a joke into an industry.

The starting point of this change is regulation. According to publicly available rules, the EU ReFuelEU Aviation Act requires that starting in 2025, a certain percentage of sustainable aviation fuel must be blended into aviation fuel supplied at EU airports, with plans to gradually increase this proportion in the future; the CORSIA mechanism led by the International Civil Aviation Organization, from the perspective of offsetting international aviation carbon emissions, has created another layer of demand for SAF. The combination of these two systems has pushed SAF from a "demonstration project" to a "compliance necessity."

In terms of technology routes, two main lines have currently developed domestically in parallel: one is the HEFA (Hydroprocessed Esters and Fatty Acids) route using waste oils and fats as raw materials, which is mature, has quick capacity deployment, and is the current main supply; the other is the FT (Fischer-Tropsch) route using agricultural and forestry waste and biomass as raw materials, which has a wider range of sources and is seen as key for overcoming raw material bottlenecks in the medium to long term. Both routes started simultaneously in the capacity race, reflecting a dual-track choice that has to be made under raw material constraints.

The actions of state-owned enterprises best indicate the pace of the industry. On February 6, 2026, Sinopec Cangzhou Branch's 200,000 tons/year sustainable aviation fuel retrofit project held its first environmental impact assessment announcement. According to the announcement documents, the project is located in Xinhua District, Cangzhou City, with an investment of about 790 million yuan. It plans to partially retrofit a 600,000 tons/year diesel and gasoline hydrogenation refining unit into a 200,000 tons/year aviation fuel facility, supported by a 200,000 tons/year raw material pretreatment unit. The main products are aviation fuel and bio-naphtha, with a small amount of gas as a by-product. This enterprise currently has a crude oil processing capacity of 3.5 million tons/year. The retrofit approach is a typical repositioning of existing assets—using part of existing units to create a new product line.

The pace of China National Petroleum Corporation is equally tight. Its first 100,000 tons/year sustainable aviation fuel project is under full-speed construction at North China Petrochemical. As of the end of May 2026, the basic design has been fully completed, and long-cycle equipment orders have been simultaneously initiated. The project adopts the internationally advanced HEFA process route and collaborates with the East China Design Institute to optimize the pretreatment plan, focusing on solving the challenges of processing waste oils with high acidity, high chlorine, and high impurities, while also advancing airworthiness certification and raw material supply security. North China Petrochemical is located in the heart of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, adjacent to Beijing Daxing International Airport, and undertakes about 85% of the aviation fuel supply for this airport. Its location naturally suits the supply radius of SAF.

A strategically significant aspect is the adjustment at the level of industrial organization. In January 2026, the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council officially approved the restructuring of Sinopec and China Aviation Oil. Industry insiders generally believe that one of the core aims of this merger is the industrial layout of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) — connecting production and sales to make the pipeline from refineries to airport fuel hydrants smoother. In terms of technology verification, SAF independently developed by Sinopec has completed test flights on the C919 and ARJ21, with full lifecycle carbon emissions reduced by over 50% compared to traditional jet fuel, filling the application gap for domestically produced aircraft.

The expansion speed of private enterprises is equally noteworthy. According to industry statistics, Henan Junheng Bio's 700,000-ton HEFA facility, Qingdao Dongjiakou's 300,000-ton project, and Zhejiang Zhoushan's 225,000-ton SAF project will all fully advance construction in 2026; Haixin Energy's 200,000-ton isomerized SAF has already achieved stable mass production and obtained international sustainability certification, qualifying it for export. According to plans, by 2027 Sinopec's total bio-jet fuel production capacity will exceed 500,000 tons.

The FT route represents a longer-term imaginative space. The 100,000-ton biomass SAF project in Luzhou, Sichuan, is the country's first commercial large-scale FT facility, using bamboo powder, distiller's grains, and agricultural and forestry waste as raw materials, with a total investment of 3.5 billion yuan; the 100,000-ton green aviation fuel project in Fangshan, Beijing, is aimed at ensuring low-carbon aviation supply in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, reducing about 800,000 tons of carbon dioxide annually; the China Energy Construction Xinjiang Hutuobi Green Aviation Fuel Industrial Park plans a 100,000-ton SAF capacity, with a total investment of 4.12 billion yuan, expected to create 800 jobs; the 10,000-ton Power-to-Liquid (PtL) demonstration project in Tacheng, Xinjiang, uses wind and solar green hydrogen combined with carbon dioxide to synthesize fuel, representing a validation of cutting-edge technology.

Both pathways come with costs. HEFA is constrained by the collection radius and total ceiling of waste oils, and fluctuations in feedstock prices are directly reflected in costs; FT requires large upfront investment and involves a long process chain, but its feedstock sources are wide and scalable, and once economic viability is achieved, it has a higher ceiling. The general industry view is that from 2025 to 2030, HEFA will bear the main supply role, and thereafter, as projects in resource-rich regions such as Xinjiang, Sichuan, and Inner Mongolia come online, straw-based jet fuel is expected to become the core driver of growth.

Feedstock organization is the most easily underestimated link in this industry chain. Waste oils are scattered across catering terminals and their collection depends on the collection and transportation system as well as price mechanisms, and the level of standardization directly determines the amount of feedstock available; agricultural and forestry waste is constrained by the collection radius and seasonality. Whether a SAF project can operate at full capacity often does not depend on the capacity of the facility, but rather on whether there is a stable, compliant, and cost-controllable feedstock aggregation network within several hundred kilometers of the project site.

Economics is another threshold. The production cost of SAF is significantly higher than that of conventional aviation kerosene, and the current price difference is mainly absorbed through policy mandates, voluntary purchases by airlines, and carbon market revenues. This means that the pace of expansion of the SAF industry depends on the intersection point of two curves: the strength of policies and the rate of cost reduction—if policies advance quickly, demand will rise quickly; if technological progress is fast, supply can keep up. Overseas markets are also progressing simultaneously. In 2026, Ningbo Engineering Company, affiliated with Sinopec Engineering (Group), signed a front-end engineering design and detailed design contract for a SAF project in Uzbekistan with United Biofuels Company during the Tashkent International Investment Forum. This project is the first large-scale, full-industry-chain bio-aviation fuel complex in Central Asia, integrating biomass raw material processing, green hydrogen production, sustainable aviation fuel, electro-synthetic jet fuel, and green diesel production, with a total investment of approximately 6.1 billion USD and supporting large-scale photovoltaic, green hydrogen, and energy storage facilities. Chinese engineering companies have thus exported their SAF engineering capabilities overseas.

From used cooking oil (UCO) to aviation kerosene, the reconstruction of this chain has significance beyond carbon reduction. It connects urban waste, agricultural residues, and high-end transportation fuels, forming a new paradigm of resource circulation. The global aviation industry consumes hundreds of millions of tons of aviation fuel each year, and the current penetration rate of SAF is still at an initial stage, with the competition for production capacity just beginning. Whoever can first optimize raw material organization, process economics, and certification systems will hold the discourse power in the next round of the green fuel industry.

Food waste oil is the source of this industrial chain and also its greatest uncertainty. used cooking oil (UCO) and kitchen waste oil are scattered throughout the urban catering system, and their collection relies on recycling networks and compliance channels. Fluctuations in impurity content, acid value, and moisture directly affect pretreatment costs and facility load. Industry insiders generally believe that raw material costs account for the major portion of SAF's total cost. Therefore, whoever can establish a stable and traceable collection and storage system will gain the upper hand in both cost and compliance.

The demand-side push comes from policies and airlines' emission reduction commitments. The European Union has implemented mandatory blending requirements for aviation fuels and is gradually increasing the blending ratio; domestic airlines are also accumulating operational experience through refueling pilots. When blending changes from voluntary to mandatory, SAF (Sustainable Aviation Fuel) transforms from a 'demonstration product' into a required raw material, thereby opening the ceiling for market scale. However, it should be noted that mandatory blending will also increase airlines' fuel costs in the short term. How the final price is shared among upstream producers, airlines, and passengers still requires mechanism design.

Source: Public information from Sinopec and CNPC, Carbon Hydrogen Energy Network, China Petroleum and Chemical, China Daily, and industry public reports

[Research Supporting Institutions: Energy and Dual-Carbon Research Center of China Industry News Agency | China Energy Industry Development Network]