EASA publishes 2025 reference prices for ReFuelEU Aviation
With first full year of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) mandate behind us, the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) launched reference prices for the ReFuelEU Aviation initiative for the year 2025.
These will serve as benchmarks for EU states determining non-compliance penalties and for the support mechanism for eligible aviation fuels under the EU ETS Directive.
EASA calculated 2025 real index price for aviation biofuels in 2025 at €1,925/t ($2,235/t). Meanwhile, the agency arrived at production cost estimation for the synthetic aviation fuels (average for fuels from industrial, biogenic and atmospheric CO2) at €7,520/t ($8,732.98/t). Meanwhile, the price of conventional aviation fuel during the year averaged at €640/t ($743.23/t).
During the year, the pricing created differentials of €1,285/t ($1,492/t) for SAF and €6,880/t ($7,990/t) for eSAF compared with conventional fuel.
Under Article 12 of ReFuelEU Aviation, penalties for non-compliance must be at least twice the price difference between SAF and fossil kerosene.
Significantly, jet fuel suppliers who fail to meet EU mandates must pay these penalties but aren’t exempted from meeting quotas. Unfulfilled quotas carry over to subsequent years, making non-compliance increasingly costly over time.
Under the RefuelEU rules, fuel suppliers were required to pass SAF documentation to aircraft operators by February 14th last month.
In the last week of February, the European Regions Airline Association (ERA) raised concerns that many of the fuel suppliers had missed the deadline to submit SAF documentation to their members. It also said that the information they received was inconsistent and missing.
The ERA said has its members now have until the end of March to submit all of the information to the EASA with regards to their use of SAF, leaving them little to no time to reconcile, certify and submit the data.