General Index, Atoba Energy announce SAF-pricing partnership

From left, Bradford and Namer. (Photo: Atoba Energy)

Atoba Energy announced May 20 a strategic partnership with General Index.

The companies said they expect the partnership to bring a brand-new vision of how sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) benchmarks are built.

SAF indexes need to be tailored to the unique cost profiles of diverse production technologies, delivering the right information required to scale the SAF industry for aviation goal of net zero by 2050.

For more than half a century, the aviation industry has relied on traditional price-reporting services to manage exposure to price risks in the fossil jet-fuel market.

But the SAF revolution demands a new approach, according to Atoba Energy.

Unlike traditional fuels, SAF can be produced from a wide variety of certified technologies, each with distinct feedstocks, costs, CO2-reduction capabilities and production scalability—and, at the end, producing similar drop-in aviation fuels.

A one-size-fits-all SAF index isn’t fungible in this complex emerging market, the company stated.

“Atoba recognizes that the immediate hurdle to overcome is unlocking investment and building confidence in bankable long-term offtake agreements for new production facilities,” the company said.

A key enabler to overcoming this challenge, according to Atoba Energy, is bringing transparency and a level playing field to the industry through the creation of new SAF-price indexes, developed by General Index.

Each index will be designed to reflect the unique cost profile of the diverse SAF technologies and aggregated to create a benchmark that aligns with regulatory frameworks, regional nuances and market needs.

“Creating transparent and technology-specific SAF price benchmarks is critical to scaling sustainable aviation fuel markets,” said Neil Bradford, the founder and CEO of General Index. “We’re already a benchmark partner to the European Commission for the official 2024 aviation fuels reference prices for ReFuelEU aviation. Now, by partnering with Atoba Energy, we’re helping to build the foundational infrastructure needed to attract investment, support offtake agreements and accelerate the aviation industry’s transition to net zero.”

Arnaud Namer, the CEO and co-founder of Atoba Energy, said, “Unlocking investment in sustainable aviation fuel starts with transparency, market confidence and trusted pricing tools. That’s why we’re proud to partner with General Index to introduce a new generation of SAF-price benchmarks tailored to the real cost structures of emerging SAF technologies. These benchmarks are critical to ensuring SAF is competitively priced for airlines—an advantage we deliver thanks to our diversified portfolio of best-in-class SAF producers and long-term offtake aggregation strategy.”

General Index is a benchmark provider for the commodities markets.

It produces over 4,200 daily price benchmarks in crude oil, refined products and energy-transition markets.

Atoba Energy is a midstream SAF aggregator focused on accelerating the aviation industry’s energy transition through solving the financial dilemma between airlines and producers.

Atoba provides long-term SAF contracts to airlines and jet-fuel resellers at optimized market SAF-pricing indexes.