Queensland study focuses on cultivating pongamia trees to produce SAF

Burnett Mary Regional Group, Idemitsu Kosan Co and J-Oil Mills with the cooperation of the Queensland government in Australia have agreed to jointly study the establishment of a sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) supply chain by planting pongamia trees.
The project will study the planting and management of the trees, CO2 fixation and offsetting through the planting.
The project will also help build a SAF supply chain and improve forest investment.
As a specific measure to reduce CO2 emissions in the aviation industry, there is a growing social demand to achieve a stable supply of SAF.
SAF is produced from non-fossil fuel derived raw materials, and one of the challenges is to secure raw materials that are less competitive with food crops, while there are multiple technological processes and raw materials for this purpose.
In these circumstances, Pongamia pinnata, a legume that grows throughout Southeast Asia and Oceania, is a non-edible oil feedstock with high oil yield efficiency and is expected to be leveraged as an SAF feedstock.
On February 1, Idemitsu and J-Oil Mills announced that they would jointly undertake a study on building a biomass business, including SAF production, plastic recycling and bio-chemical utilization by securing bio-based raw materials in order to achieve a circular economy.
As part of this effort, the firms have reached an agreement to initiate this study with BMRG who are engaged in a wide range of natural resource management activities in Queensland, including forestation, cultivation and harvesting.