The company behind a £1.5bn facility in Teesside that will bring more than 1,000 jobs has criticised Government delays.

The alfanar group’s Lighthouse Green Fuels Project, which will be based at the former Air Products site at Port Clarence, will be the first company in the UK to produce sustainable aviation fuel from waste on a large scale.

The Saudi company was awarded more than £11million from the Government to push ahead with its plan, as part of the Department for Transport’s £165 million Advanced Fuels Fund.

The Northern Echo: The alfanar siteThe alfanar site

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But news yesterday that the DfT plans to support the industry might not be in place until 2025 was greeted with dismay by alfanar.

Noaman Aladhami, Country Head of alfanar in the UK, said: “The announcement is a step in the right direction, but investors like Alfanar need greater certainty on price stability now, not in two years’ time.

“We have committed to build a £1.5 billion Sustainable Aviation Fuel facility on Teesside, which will bring upwards of 1,100 jobs to the region while going a long way to help UK aviation decarbonise.

“alfanar can help deliver much-needed jobs and growth to the North East, but we can’t do it if there is no price stability mechanism in place alongside the SAF mandate.”

Tees Valley Mayor Ben Houchen said: “Teesside has the expertise, the people, the airport and now it has investors lining up ready to help create jobs and decarbonise air travel – and we need to back them.

“SAF is a fantastic project we need to get behind and deliver as quickly as possible to secure the future of our airport, the jobs of tomorrow and millions of pounds of investment.”

In May alfanar and N+P Group said they would work together to source and process up to one million tonnes per year of non-recyclable waste to be used to create feedstock pellets which can then be used to produce SAF.

Back then, Mr Al Adhami said: “Lighthouse Green Fuels will not only be the biggest SAF production facility in the UK when operational, but the UK’s first negative emissions SAF project, and therefore a critical contributor to the UK Government’s 2030 SAF targets.

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The DfT had said it will launch a consultation over a scheme to bolster the development of SAF and drive further investment. It said the ‘revenue certainty scheme’ will give the aviation sector the launchpad to confidently invest in SAF.

A statement said: “This scheme, along with the introduction of a SAF mandate in 2025, will provide fuel security, grow the economy and help to create over 10,000 jobs by 2030, rising to 60,000 by 2050.”

Chair of the Jet Zero Council SAF Delivery Group, Jonathon Counsell, said: “We will work with the government to be able to implement measures at the earliest opportunity so that we can hit the target of five UK SAF plants in construction by 2025.”