Gazpromneft Aero, operator of Gazprom Neft’s aviation refuelling business, has delivered a 28% increase in sales of aviation fuels in 2021, reaching 3.7 million tonnes — this figure also exceeding pre-pandemic sales levels in 2019. Direct “wing-tip” sales increased by 29%, reaching 2.4 million tonnes — this positive sales trend being the result of increasing aviation-fuel sales throughout Russia’s most important airports, with sales up 30% at Moscow’s aviation hub, up 90% in St Petersburg, and up 27% and 69%, respectively, in Novosibirsk and Ekaterinburg.
The company’s proprietary Smart Fuel blockchain platform, facilitating instant payments in aviation refuelling, has now gone into operation at 15 airports throughout Russia. This digital service increases efficiency in financial operations, cutting lead times in mutual settlements between fuel suppliers and airlines from four to five days to 15 seconds. Gazprom Neft’s blockchain platform is now registered in the Russian Ministry for Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media’s Domestic Software Register.
Gazprom Neft began commercial production of JET A-1 fuel — a product with high export potential — at the company’s Omsk Refinery in 2021. This aviation fuel is now being supplied to countries throughout the Asia—Pacific, including to Kyrgyzstan at the country’s main Manas International Airport.
Gazprom Neft is actively involved in decarbonising aviation refuelling — the Eurasian SAF Alliance having been established at the company’s initiative in 2021. The Eurasian SAF-Alliance is an open forum through which aviation-industry market participants throughout the green jet-fuel value chain can engage. Gazprom Neft’s partners include aviation-industry leaders such as Airbus, Aeroflot, S7 Group, Volga-Dnepr Group, the N.E. Zhukovsky Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute (TsAGI) and the State Research Institute of Civil Aviation (FGUP GosNII GA). Alliance members expect Russia’s first SAF-fuelled flight to take place no later than 2024.
«Expanding our geographic footprint, and further strengthening long-standing cooperation with leading Russian and international airlines, together with swift responses to market change, have allowed us not just to return to
2018–2019 production levels, but actually exceed them. We are looking forward to a continued revival in passenger air traffic in the medium term, and stand ready to provide our partners with aviation refuelling services at 328 airports throughout 71 countries worldwide. To ensure the sustainability of the Russian aviation market, as well as the competitiveness of domestic airlines, Gazprom Neft was behind the creation of the Eurasian SAF-Alliance — a technological union of developers and producers of SAF fuel with a minimum carbon footprint».
Vladimir Egorov Director General, Gazpromneft Aero
