China Five-Year planning for SAF supply growth
The year 1953 saw many significant events. Elizabeth II was crowned Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay were the first to summit Mount Everest. And the end of the Korean War.
Arguably more significant than all of these events in 1953 was the beginning of the first Chinese Five-Year Plan. Running until 1957, it heavily emphasised developing Chinese heavy industries such as coal, steel and iron production. This set in motion the country’s growth, although admittedly a lot of this growth came after Deng XaoPing’s 1978 Reform and Opening Up policy. Now, China has the second largest gross domestic product (GDP) at $20.85trn, according to the International Monetary Fund.
China’s 15th Five-Year Plan (2026–2030), approved in March 2026, places a much stronger emphasis on low-carbon development and carbon emissions reduction as part of the country’s ‘Beautiful China’ initiative. The plan highlights carbon intensity reduction, industrial decarbonisation and green transformation, providing further policy support for industries such as sustainable aviation fuel (SAF).
“This is the first time carbon reductions have been mentioned so clearly in a Five-Year Plan. This is certainly helping the bio-energy industry, including SAF,” Xiang Li, CEO, Jianglan Bio-Energy Europe tells SAF Investor.
China has already become a global leader in the SAF industry. The country currently has six producers, which collectively produce more than three million tonnes of SAF annually.
The Jianglan Bio-Energy project is in Zhejiang province and is on scheduled to complete construction at the end of 2026. It aims to produce 300,000 tonnes of SAF annually.
‘China speed’
One of the things that is the envy of many western SAF producers is the speed these large infrastructure projects can be built. Li has made speed a central part of Jianglan Bio-Energy’s strategy. The company is using Desmet’s feedstock pretreatment technology and Topsoe’s Hydroflex HEFA refining technology for the project to de-risk the technology stack.
“We’re able to complete our manufacturer site in one and a half years. A similar scale of manufacturer in Europe could take four and a half or five and a half years,” says Li.
James Hygate, founder and CEO, Firefly, also noted the speed of Chinese development on the latest episode of The SAF Podcast.
“China can move very quickly. And you have ‘China speed’ and that’s how these things get rolled out incredibly quickly. And we’ve seen it across renewables. If you go to one of the provinces, it’s 80% renewable now, 10 years ago very little of that is there and what China has is very strong and relatively rapid engineering,” explains Hygate.
This speed is partly due to the workforce mentality.
“In China workers get paid for a project so they voluntarily want to finish early and then move onto the next project. This is a totally different culture and different structure that in China they’re wanting to finish earlier rather than finish late,” says Li.
Another critical aspect is the permitting and assessment processes. Li tells SAF Investor that the environment studies and risk assessments for their project were completed in five months. A lot of this is possible due to favourable provincial governments. Zhejiang province has its own policy enabling SAF developments, once a province decides to enact policies enabling SAF, projects can move forward at a rapid rate, explains Li.
Chinese SAF export
Once the project construction is finished Li believes the company will get on the Chinese export whitelist by early 2027.
“If you are not on a whitelist, then you’re not able to sell overseas. You are not able to sell more than you produce. So, if I have 240,000 tonnes of SAF production per year, then the maximum number I can export is 240,000 tonnes. So we can’t be SAF traders,” explains Li.
There are six producers on the export whitelist, with a total export capacity of 1.705 million tonnes per year, according to S&P Platts data. The most recent addition is Blue Whale Bioenergy, which received its licence in June 2026.
One of the major concerns across Europe is the sustainability criteria of Chinese producers SAF and used cooking oil (UCO). Building integrity in the certification process is an ongoing process in China. The country is nine months into a one-year trial of a governmental regulatory framework, the China Sustainability Certification Scheme (CSCS), which will be regulating the UCO feedstock traceability and supply chain for SAF production.
“The government wants Europe to see China put a lot more attention in the sector. It not only wants to do business, but do business properly. The Second Research Institute of the Civil Aviation Authority of China (CAAC), has collaborated with key industry stakeholders, including SAF feedstock suppliers, producers, auditors and research institutions to develop an independent aviation fuel sustainability evaluation system, the CSCS,” says Li.
There is also ongoing work on developing a SAF mandate in China, the specifics of which are yet to be confirmed. Policy- and market- enabling measures in China are fundamental aspects of why Jianglan Bio-Energy has invested in SAF production.
This could prove problematic for European HEFA producers as more feedstock gets upgraded to SAF in China and then either exported to Europe as finished SAF or the SAF gets utilised in Asian markets.
“I think it’s going to be really interesting to see what happens on the HEFA market across Europe and in the US,” says Firefly’s Hygate.
China is also restricting the numbers of HEFA SAF facilities in the country in order to manage feedstock supplies.
“There are a lot more projects than you see. I have heard over 100 applying for SAF production licences. However, they did not get approved because there’s only so much feedstock,” says Li. “The government doesn’t want the market getting overwhelmed. There is only very limited number that get approved in China.”
China exported a record 101,000 tonnes of SAF in May 2026. The highest amount since the export quota began, according to S&P Platts.
Chinese SAF exports are already the backbone to fulfilling global SAF demand. With the focus in the 15th Five-Year Plan and the regulatory support growing for the green economy, including SAF, you cannot afford to take your eye off the world’s second largest economy. Much like Hillary and Norgay when they were climbing into the history books to summit Everest.
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