News Roundup January 2026

EUROPE:

UK SAF startup Nova Pangaea Technologies has appointed cleantech veteran Stewart Stewart as its new CEO. Originally from Texas, he joins from New York-based investment bank Javelin Capital, where he advised on green fuel opportunities. He has previously held executive leadership roles with cleantech companies BayoTech and Concord Blue Energy in Los Angeles, and was a senior adviser to London-based Ikigai Energy. Replacing Sarah Ellerby, who recently stood down, he will lead the growth of Nova Pangaea, including development of its first commercial plant in north-east England.
The company’s REFNOVA technology converts cellulosic biomass like forestry and agricultural residues into bioethanol, which can then be processed into SAF. It operates a demonstration plant at a major manufacturing site in Tees Valley. It is currently working with British Airways and LanzaJet on Project Speedbird, and plans to deploy its technology at four production plants across the UK, as well as to license its technology internationally.

Oxford, UK-based SAF startup OXCCU has won the 2026 Startups 100 Sustainability Award, which honours businesses that demonstrate innovative and impactful sustainability practices. It has developed a single-step process that combines captured CO2 with green hydrogen to create jet fuel range hydrocarbons. Its patented iron catalyst converts CO2 and CO directly into liquid hydrocarbons in a single reaction, avoiding intermediate steps and minimising byproducts. The company’s OX1 demonstration facility at London Oxford Airport has now logged 1,000 hours producing liquid fuel, reportedly with high conversion rates. OXCCU recently secured £20.75 million in Series B funding to further scale its fuels and technologies.

Moeve has completed the supply of SAF to Condor for flights from Tenerife South Airport to major German destinations including Hamburg, Munich, Frankfurt and Germany. The agreement covered more than 515 tonnes of SAF, produced from used cooking oils and agricultural waste at Moeve’s La Rábida Energy Park in Huelva, where it is currently building a new second-generation biofuels plant with a flexible annual production capacity of 500,000 tonnes of SAF and renewable diesel. It is more than 50% complete, says the company, and slated to begin production at the end of 2026, when it will become the largest of its kind in southern Europe.
“Since last year, Condor guests have had the opportunity to voluntarily round up their flight booking price or make direct contributions to advance SAF and certified climate protection projects,” said Sina Rathberger, Director Airport Relations, Government Affairs and Sustainability at Condor. “These funds are exclusively allocated to procure and deploy additional SAF beyond regulatory mandates.”

French advanced biofuels technology company Haffner Energy and Madrid-headquartered power-to-energy player IGNIS P2X have announced the start of their bio/eSAF collaborative AeroVerde project, which will initially involve identifying the location for the site in Spain. Haffner’s technology converts residual biomass with no conflicts of use into a hydrogen-rich syngas that can be used to produce bioSAF through various pathways such as alcohol-to-jet and Fischer-Tropsch. In addition, excess biogenic CO2 from the syngas production process can be combined with renewable hydrogen of non-biological origin (RFNBO) produced by IGNIS P2X to then produce eSAF. IGNIS launched its P2X platform in 2024 to develop green hydrogen, ammonia and other clean technology projects in Spain and internationally. The group has a total portfolio of over 30 GW of renewable projects in operation and under development in Europe, the US, Latin America and Asia.

Topsoe has been selected by Uruguay’s state-owned energy company ANCAP to deliver technology and services for a HEFA unit located at the La Teja Refinery in Montevideo. The project will use Topsoe’s HydroFlex technology, proprietary equipment and catalysts to enable the production of SAF and renewable diesel. The project is expected to reach final investment decision (FID) in 2027, with commercial operations due to begin in 2030 and will use rapeseed oil and beef tallow as feedstock to produce approximately 3,000 barrels of SAF and renewable diesel per day.
In December, Topsoe was chosen to deliver advanced Solid Oxide Electrolyzer Cell technology for Carbon Neutral Fuels’ (CNF) commercial-scale eSAF project called Project Starling in Workington, UK. Construction is planned for 2028 and operations expected in 2031, pending FID, with the plant slated to produce 25,000 tonnes of eSAF per year. Topsoe has signed a FEED agreement with CNF, which marks the first commercial application of its SOEC technology for use in commercial SAF production.
Topsoe meanwhile has announced changes to its leadership with current CCO Elena Scaltritti taking over as CEO in June 2026 when Roeland Baan steps down. The company’s EMEA region Vice President, Yassir Ghiyati, has been appointed CCO with immediate effect.
 
AMERICAS:

US chemical reactor technology company Syzygy Plasmonics has announced a binding six-year SAF offtake agreement between its subsidiary SP Developments Uruguay and global commodities company Trafigura. It covers the entire production volume of Syzygy’s first plant, NovaSAF-1, to be located in Uruguay, with first deliveries targeted in 2028. The agreement also includes an option for Trafigura to purchase additional volumes from Syzygy’s future projects.
Syzygy’s solution addresses the constraints of tightening availability of sustainable feedstocks, says the company, by combining abundant biogas with renewable electricity in a modular, electrified platform. Trade named NovaSAF, its pathway has received ISCC pre-certification to produce Renewable Fuels of Non-Biological Origin (RFNBO) and Advanced BioSAF compliant fuels.
 
Gevo has been awarded a US patent that broadens protections for different catalyst combinations and explicitly protects the use of Ethanol-to-Olefins (ETO) technology to produce fuels, including renewable jet fuel. The company is developing ETO with partners LG Chem to deploy the process for renewable chemical applications, and with Axens and IFP Energies nouvelles (IFPEN) for fuel applications. The patented process produces light olefins from ethanol and can convert them into transportation fuels using commercially proven alcohol-to-jet technologies.
Transitioning from his previous role as Chief Business Development Officer, Alex Clayton has been named by Gevo as its new Chief Carbon Officer to advance the company’s voluntary carbon markets activity. Gevo believes its North Dakota facility is the largest producer of engineered carbon dioxide removal credits and is the only ethanol carbon capture and storage project to issue credits with thousand-year permanence. The company has announced the plant has now issued more than 500,000 Puro.earth-certified certificates since CCS activities began in June 2022.