High Speed Gallop: Aether Fuels surges with Singapore Airlines, Comstock Fuels busts it with Oklahoma

The prospects for drop-in fuels advanced materially today with big news from Aether and Comstock.

In Singapore, Singapore Airlines signed a MoU to procure neat SAF for five years with an option for a five-year extension from Aether Fuels, when Aether plants begin commercial production, Aether will use waste carbon feedstock to produce the fuel, employing its innovative and proprietary Aether Aurora technology. This method reduces plant capital cost, increases production efficiency, and achieves higher SAF yields compared to existing techniques.

Aether was incubated and funded in 2022 by Xora, a deep tech venture firm backed by Temasek. Since then, it has grown its South East Asia team while expanding its operations in Chicago, where its research and development hub is located. Aether’s upcoming commercial-scale production projects in the United States of America and South East Asia will produce CORSIA-certified SAF. These projects are set to achieve a minimum greenhouse gas reduction of 75%, significantly contributing to the aviation industry’s sustainability efforts.

Meanwhile in Oklahoma, Comstock Fuels was approved by the Oklahoma State Treasurer’s Office to issue up to $152 million in qualified private activity bonds, supporting Comstock’s plans for financing and building its first 400,000 barrel per year commercial demonstration facility in a soon-to-be-selected site in Oklahoma. The Oklahoma Development Finance Authority sponsored this bond allocation to support the State’s essential infrastructure projects with Comstock’s first Oklahoma commercial biorefining facility.

Private activity bonds are any bond: (1) of which more than 10% of the proceeds is to be used in a trade or business of any person or persons other than a governmental unit or which is to be directly or indirectly repaid, or secured by revenues from a private trade or business; and (2) in which an amount exceeding the lesser of 5% or $5 million of the proceeds is to be used for loans to any person or persons other than a governmental unit.