The U.S. Grains & BioProducts Council’s (USGBC’s) Southeast Asia & Oceania (SEA&O) regional office recently led a delegation of government stakeholders from Indonesia and Vietnam to the MyAERO Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) Symposium in Putrajaya, Malaysia, as part of the Council’s ongoing effort to elevate U.S. corn ethanol as a strategic feedstock for alcohol-to-jet (ATJ) sustainable aviation fuel.
USGBC Regional Director for SEA&O Caleb Wurth, Vietnam Country Representative Tran Trong Nghia, Regional Ethanol Consultant Kent Yeo and Regional Ethanol Consultant Aaron Goh represented the Council at the event that drew more than 400 participants from more than 20 countries to discuss the future of SAF development across the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region.
“The symposium provided an important platform for the Council to promote ATJ as a scalable pathway capable of complementing conventional hydroprocessed esters and fatty acids (HEFA) production,” Wurth said.
“While HEFA will remain the dominant SAF technology in the near term, its growth is expected to be constrained by the limited availability of sustainable lipid feedstocks,” Wurth added. “Our discussions highlighted ethanol as a readily available, globally traded feedstock that can help bridge future SAF supply gaps while facilitating long-term decarbonization goals.”
Wurth participated in a panel discussion on SAF feedstock availability, where he discussed the role of ethanol in expanding global SAF production.
By facilitating participation from senior regional government officials, the Council strengthened relationships with policymakers responsible for shaping national SAF strategies. These engagements provided opportunities for continued technical dialogue as part of Yeo’s and Goh’s efforts on ethanol demand building in the region.
“Decarbonization is a major factor in governmental and industry interest in transitioning to SAF, and with the considerable scale of air travel in the APAC region there will be significant demand for sustainable feedstocks,” Yeo said.
Indonesia and Vietnam are actively developing SAF roadmaps while exploring pathways that can be commercialized at scale. Through sustained engagement, technical exchanges and exposure to international best practices, the Council is helping ensure ethanol remains part of those policy discussions.
“Countries across the region are rightly seeking to maximize domestic feedstock production for SAF, but no single feedstock will be sufficient to meet long-term demand,” Goh said. “Ethanol offers a scalable pathway that complements local feedstock development through reliable U.S. imports.”
U.S. Grains & BioProducts Council (USGBC) Regional Director for Southeast Asia & Oceania Caleb Wurth (center) recently spoke about the role of ethanol in sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) production at the MyAERO SAF Symposium in Putrajaya, Malaysia.