The Sustainable Aviation Buyers Alliance (SABA) has announced purchase commitments from member companies, including AVEVA, Bain & Company, Google and McKinsey, for sustainable aviation fuel certificates (SAFc) tied to Infinium Energy's Project Atlas, a planned Texas eSAF facility expected to produce approximately 100,000 metric tonnes of SAF annually. Infinium submitted its winning proposal jointly with American Airlines, which will serve as the physical offtaker, taking delivery of the fuel and overseeing logistics.
What Project Atlas Actually Is
Project Atlas is a planned Texas-based eSAF facility, selected through SABA's own procurement process in April 2026 specifically for its next-generation SAF programme. Infinium produces ultra-low carbon eSAF at commercial scale using waste CO2 and renewable energy, converting captured carbon into a drop-in aviation fuel compatible with existing aircraft and infrastructure without requiring modification.
How SABA's Procurement Model Actually Works
SABA operates a book-and-claim model: participating corporate buyers purchase SAFc, while the physical fuel itself is delivered to an aircraft operator, in this case American Airlines, which facilitates allocation of the resulting Scope 3 emissions reductions back to SABA's member companies. That structure lets companies such as Google or McKinsey claim verified emissions reductions from Project Atlas's output without any of that fuel necessarily reaching an aircraft either company's own employees or freight travel on.
Why This Procurement Round Is Structurally Different From SABA's Earlier Work
SABA describes this specifically as the first application of its model built around an exclusive focus on supporting projects toward final investment decision, rather than purchasing certificates from already-operating or already-financed SAF supply. The contracted volumes are projected to support greenhouse gas abatement of more than 212,000 tonnes of CO2-equivalent, which SABA frames as equivalent to the emissions from more than 3,500 JFK-to-LAX flights, though that figure describes anticipated abatement from the facility's eventual output rather than emissions already avoided.
What Infinium's Own Statement Confirms, and What Remains Open
Infinium states that with these binding, multi-year offtake agreements in hand, it is now positioned to advance Project Atlas toward final investment decision and secure financing, and separately plans to sell RFNBO-compliant eSAF from the facility into European regulatory markets, alongside its voluntary corporate customer base. Neither SABA nor Infinium disclosed a specific price paid per SAFc, a construction timeline, or a target date for the FID itself; the announcement covers the offtake agreements achieved, not confirmation that the facility has since reached FID or begun construction.
The Broader Context SABA and Its Partners Named Directly
Environmental Defense Fund president Fred Krupp's statement was explicit that eFuels remain more expensive to produce despite representing one of the more sustainable pathways for aviation decarbonisation, framing this deal as proof that high-integrity eSAF is investable now rather than only in theory, while naming the next unresolved test as translating early demand signals of this kind into the longer-term policy and financing conditions needed for eSAF suppliers to scale beyond individual projects. SABA states it has now aggregated a cumulative USD 500 million in SAFc demand from more than 35 member companies since its founding.
Source: Sustainable Aviation Buyers Alliance, 22 September 2026.
