The European Biofuels & SAF Summit 2026 was held in Spain on June 17–18. Key speakers at the summit included Piotr Szymański, Director for Energy, Transport and Climate at the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC); Giorgio Centurelli, Director-General of the NRRP Task Unit at the Italian Ministry of Environment and Energy Security; Sébastien Justum, Head of Public and International Affairs at Air France-KLM Group; Mélanie Astruc, SAF Programme Director at Airbus; as well as representatives from Shell, bp, TotalEnergies, the EBRD, BloombergNEF and other institutions and enterprises. Attendees exchanged insights on policy frameworks, market mechanisms, project financing and scaling supply pathways for biofuels and SAF.
During the roundtable discussion themed Driving SAF Market Adoption: Locking in Offtake Agreements and End-User Partnerships, Dr. Du Jia'en, Vice President of HydoTech, joined fellow panelists including Simon Berkemeier, Senior Director of Fuels, SAF & Energy Procurement at Lufthansa Group; Christel Vandenhouten, Head of Sustainability Group at Brussels Airport Company; Jana Baschin, Senior Vice President of Corporate Strategy & Sustainability at Fraport Group; Paul Bergmans, Strategy Manager at SkyNRG; and Urszula Szalkowska, Managing Director for Europe at EcoEngineers. The session focused on the design of long-term SAF offtake agreements, collaboration between airlines, airports and corporate offtakers, and the synergy mechanism between buyers and producers across the SAF value chain.
Dr. Du noted that the SAF market is transitioning from a policy-driven phase to a stage of project delivery and closed-loop commercialization. The core value of long-term offtake agreements goes far beyond "securing buyers"; what matters more is whether buyers can see clear project economics, stable supply capacity, and the producer's long-term delivery reliability. For synthetic fuel pathways such as e-SAF, green hydrogen and end-to-end green fuel system capabilities are the critical variables that determine project economics, supply stability and delivery performance. Volatility in renewable energy, feedstock availability, fuel synthesis requirements, operational efficiency and certification mandates must all be integrated into the overall green fuel system design at the early project stage, rather than addressed in siloed, separate steps.
He pointed out that the core challenge for current SAF projects is clear decarbonization pressure on the demand side, while the supply side remains constrained by costs, production capacity, feedstock access and financing conditions. For offtake agreements to effectively underpin project financing, producers need to present clearer cost curves, system-level solutions and proven delivery capabilities; end users, in turn, need to provide certainty for project construction and capacity ramp-up through medium- and long-term procurement commitments.
In response to this industry trend, HydoTech has built comprehensive solution capabilities for green fuel projects, covering key segments including renewable energy integration, green hydrogen and green fuel system design, synthesis process coordination, system integration and intelligent operation. Building on its track record in green fuel and industrial decarbonization projects, HydoTech has developed system capabilities that enable a green hydrogen cost path of approximately $2 per kilogram. Through intelligent controls, AI algorithm integration and operational strategy optimization, the company helps customers improve system compatibility, operational stability and long-term economics, delivering highly executable solutions to support the commercial viability of green fuel projects including e-SAF.
