The UK’s bet on homegrown jet fuel exposes gaps in the SAF business model

The Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) Act received Royal Assent on 5 March 2026, giving the UK government the legislative powers to implement a Guaranteed Strike Price (GSP) for domestic SAF producers. The GSP sits at the centre of the Revenue Certainty Mechanism (RCM), a government-backed contract designed to provide long-term price support to UK SAF producers by guaranteeing a minimum revenue per litre of qualifying fuel sold. The geopolitical context in which that legislation landed has made the RCM's structural gaps harder to ignore. The Iran conflict has roughly doubled jet fuel prices from pre-conflict levels in late February to a peak in early April before a partial retreat, narrowing the cost premium between conventional jet fuel and SAF, compressing aviation demand as carriers cut capacity on affected Middle East routes, and sharpening the strategic case for domestically produced fuel outside Middle Eastern supply chains. The conditions that make the RCM most strategically urgent are the same ones that most acutely expose its unresolved design questions.