Southwest Airlines has acquired SAFFire Renewables, a company formed as part of a U.S. Department of Energy-backed project to develop and produce scalable sustainable aviation fuel, the carrier announced Thursday.
Southwest will fold SAFFire into Southwest Airlines Renewable Ventures, a venture capital subsidiary dedicated to creating more opportunities for the carrier to obtain scalable SAF, which the airline formed earlier this year.
SAFFire uses technology developed at DOE's National Renewable Energy Laboratory to convert corn stover, an agricultural residue feedstock, into renewable ethanol, according to Southwest. The carrier first invested in SAFFire in 2022.
SAFFire now "is expected to" develop a facility in Liberal, Kan., to process corn stover into ethanol, which would be converted into SAF by LanzaJet, a company in which Southwest has also invested.
"This acquisition marks Southwest's transition from investor to sole owner of SAFFire, expressing our confidence in SAFFire's technology and its potential to advance our sustainability goals as well as the goals of the broader industry," Southwest president and CEO Bob Jordan said in a statement.
Financial terms of the acquisition weren't immediately disclosed.
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