SAF Industry at a Glance
Americas | February 2026
The key SAF market developments in February 2026 include:
Crude oil pricing has seen a steady incline since the end of 2025 due to risk within the supply chain. Geopolitics and supply chain disruptions are increasing market risk, which is leading to increased premiums. Analysts are expecting the geopolitical drivers to calm toward the summer, which will lead to a decline in prices back toward the low $60/barrel.
Jet pricing increased after it saw a sharp decline for the end of 2025, growing 3% versus December. SAF margins did not increase across the board with this increase in jet pricing due to a decrease in 45Z incentive after the passing of the OBBBA in the summer of 2025. For pathways that do not rely heavily on low carbon attributes (such as non-carbon abated EtJ) saw some improvement in margins.
US SAF premiums are holding steady following the incentive reductions in 2026. These changes dealt a significant blow to the prospects for the US SAF industry.
Jet price decline caused expected SAF margins to decline with flat feedstock and incentive
FedEx introduced SAF at two more US airports toward the end of 2025 which include Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) and John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK). FedEx now uses 5 five million gallons of neat SAF amongst five major US airports.
Phillips 66 published their Q4 2025 financial results on February 4, 2026, and reported earnings of $2,906 million versus $133 million for Q3. The Renewable Fuels segment saw another increase in results and the only quarter with a positive adjusted EBITDA, driven primarily by higher realized margins including inventory impacts, even considering the offset by lower credits.
Marathon Petroleum Corp.’s renewable diesel segment provided a positive operating margin for the fourth quarter although lower than reported versus Q3 2024, attributed to a weaker margin environment compared to the previous year.
Valero Energy Corp posted Q4 2025 earnings reporting a net income of $1.1 billion ($3.73/share), compared to a net income of $281 million ($0.88/share) in Q4 2024. Management cited policy uncertainty impacting market reentry, causing some capacity to remain offline. West Coast capture rates suffered from retroactive tariffs and weak gasoline margins and management also identified ongoing regulatory risk regarding RVOs and SREs.
Neste reported Q4 2025 EBITDA of €545 million, up from reported earnings in Q4 2024. Renewable products margin was USD 479/ton compared to only USD 242/ton a year ago. Neste reports that Martinez refinery production increased compared to last year, but the challenging US renewables market caused Martinez to have a diluting impact on Neste’s sales margin.