South Africa’s Sasol is taking its sustainable aviation fuel ambitions beyond the laboratory, signing a commercial supply agreement that will put its locally produced SAF on flights from Cape Town to Antarctica.

The agreement with luxury polar tourism operator White Desert is being positioned by Sasol as Africa’s first commercial sustainable aviation fuel supply deal, giving the petrochemical giant a local customer as it works to build a larger SAF business.

White Desert operates one flight a week from Cape Town to Antarctica during its November-to-February season. Its first flight using Sasol’s SAF, aboard an Airbus A340-600, is scheduled for November.

Sasol targets bigger SAF market

The deal follows Sasol’s receipt of independent certification for its SAF from German testing agency TÜV SÜD in April, clearing a key hurdle for commercial use.

The co-processed SAF is produced from cooking oil and vegetable oil at the 108,500-barrel-per-day Natref refinery, which primarily processes crude oil.

Danie Cronje, Sasol’s senior vice president for business building, strategy and technology, said the company is now pursuing similar supply agreements with larger airlines in Europe and the Middle

East. Natref is also being converted into a hybrid bio-refinery, with Sasol targeting production of 1 million to 2 million litres of SAF this year, about 16 million litres in 2027 and as much as 100 million litres by 2030.

White Desert had previously sourced SAF from Europe but switched to a local supplier after Sasol secured certification, according to a senior company official.

Africa’s SAF race heats up

Sasol’s deal comes as other African aviation and energy companies move to establish domestic SAF production.

In May, Kenya Airways and Rubis Energy Kenya, a unit of French energy company Rubis, signed a non-binding agreement to develop what they described as Africa’s first dedicated SAF refinery.

The planned greenfield facility will use animal fats and waste vegetable oils and is expected to comply with strict European Union sustainability rules governing SAF, as European airlines continue to debate the requirements.

For Sasol, the White Desert agreement offers an early commercial test for its SAF ambitions — and a potential springboard into a much larger international aviation market.