South West to receive £4.5 million to create UK’s first SAF facility

December 10, 2025

3 min read

Spanish logistics company Exolum is investing £4.5 million into creating the UK’s first SAF (Sustainable Aviation Fuel) blending facility based at Redcliffe Bay in the South West.

The investment is part of a wider ambition of the company – which offers services for the transportation and storage of oil products – to create a UK-wide network of SAF blending hubs.

SAF is attractive as it combines renewable sources like cooking oil or agricultural waste and blends it with traditional jet fuel to create a ‘drop-in’ alternative that means aircraft engines don’t need to be modified to run on it.

Exolum’s pre-existing aviation fuel pipeline network will provide a regular source of traditional fuel to be blended with customers’ SAF and will increase the amount of green fuel supplies to airports across southern England and Wales such as those at Heathrow, Gatwick, Bristol, Exeter and Cardiff.

Unblended SAF will be delivered by ships to Bristol’s Royal Portbury Dock, from where it will be transported to Exolum’s Redcliffe Bay site by pipeline. There, it will be stored and blended onsite with traditional aviation fuel.

Exolum will also upgrade its existing pipeline storage and pumping station, including converting fuel storage tanks, installing SAF blending infrastructure, modifying existing systems with the installation of new pumps, filtration systems and segregation valves to circulate SAF between storage tanks and pump it into the pipeline network.

The facility in Redcliffe Bay marks the first; a 2,000km pipeline network that will eventually become absorbed into an ‘SAF Superhighway’ to give SAF producers and importers ready market access to jet fuel for 40% of the flights leaving UK airports. It is expected to become operational from 2026, and it will support the greening of the equivalent of up to 64,471 flights from London to New York.

This announcement follows on the heels of the Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill being introduced in May 2025, whereby it outlines introducing powers to enable a revenue certainty mechanism to support SAF production in the UK.

Lamech Solomon, Head of Decarbonisation at Logistics UK said: “As the aviation sector accelerates its transition to net zero, Exolum’s investment in the UK’s first SAF blending facility represents a major step forward in building the infrastructure we need to scale sustainable fuel.

“A UK-wide SAF network will not only cut lifecycle emissions from flights but also strengthen energy resilience and create clearer market access for producers.

“With the introduction of the Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill, it is vital that industry and government work together to provide certainty for investors and unlock the domestic SAF production the UK will rely on in the coming decades.”