DHL Express and Dubai-based developer SAF One announced on May 12 a 10-year offtake agreement covering 25,000 tonnes per year, 250,000 tonnes in aggregate, of unblended sustainable aviation fuel from SAF One’s planned Bahrain production facility, with deliveries scheduled to start in 2028. The contract is DHL Express’s first Middle East SAF offtake and the first sizeable demand commitment for what SAF One characterizes as the Middle East’s first dedicated, purpose-built SAF production facility.
The Middle East has produced SAF before — SATORP, the Saudi Aramco-TotalEnergies refining joint venture, began ISCC-certified UCO-based SAF production in October 2023, and ADNOC has also moved SAF volumes — but SAF One’s Bahrain project is positioned as the region’s first dedicated, purpose-built SAF production facility rather than co-processing within an existing refinery. The bankability question, and the reason a 10-year, 250,000-tonne offtake matters, is that construction lenders for SAF projects underwrite against firm, long-term offtake. A 10-year contract at 25 ktpa is the kind of cornerstone offtake that helps pull a SAF project across financial close, particularly in a region where the credit market has not yet developed a reference price for SAF debt.
We are proud to see the Middle East playing a central role in the global shift toward emission-reduced aviation.
The phrase, from DHL Express MENA CEO Abdulaziz Busbate, frames the agreement as both a regional play and a network play. The fuel will be allocated globally through a verified book-and-claim model, an accepted mechanism for matching SAF demand to supply when feedstock and demand are not co-located, used widely under CORSIA. The mechanism is more constrained under ReFuelEU Aviation, which requires physical uplift to count toward EU SAF mandate obligations. That gives DHL the option to claim the carbon benefit across its global network on the routes and regimes where book-and-claim qualifies, which is how the offtake intersects DHL Group’s stated target of 30 percent SAF use across its aviation operations by 2030.
SAF One describes the Bahrain facility as using renewable feedstocks and next-generation refining technologies, but the announcement does not disclose pathway (HEFA, alcohol-to-jet, e-SAF or hybrid), feedstock specification, total nameplate, or financial structure. SAF One Co-Founder and CEO Deepak Munganahalli credited BAPCO Energies, Bahrain’s national energy company, and Bahrain’s Economic Development Board with enabling the project. No financial terms or per-tonne pricing were disclosed.
First deliveries are scheduled for 2028, with 25 ktpa flowing for ten years. The undisclosed items are the load-bearing ones for project bankability: pathway, feedstock, total plant nameplate, financing structure, and reference offtake price for non-DHL volume. Worth watching: which other carriers sign on as offtakers, whether SAF One discloses pathway and feedstock at FID, and whether other Gulf state energy companies follow with their own SAF capacity announcements once the Bahrain project moves to construction.
Source: DHL Group press release
