Liepāja Special Economic Zone is continuing to work with green aviation projects, but the centre of gravity has shifted. The earlier public story around Fokker Next Gen Latvia was linked to hydrogen-powered aircraft. The current one is linked to sustainable aviation fuel, synthetic SAF and port-side industrial infrastructure.
The aviation-sector investor in the current project is Avia Solutions Group. This is not a minor local participant, but an Irish-registered aviation group with Baltic origins and a global ACMI business. In February 2025, Liepāja SEZ announced that GI Termināls had attracted Avia Solutions Group as a strategic investor, changed its name to NorSAF, and would develop a SAF production plant and CO₂ terminal in Liepāja. Avia Solutions Group now presents NorSAF within its own SAF and eSAF production business area.
The latest public step is the licence agreement between NorSAF and KBR for PureSAF technology. The planned facility is presented with a target capacity of 100,000 tonnes of SAF and eSAF per year. Avia Solutions Group’s own figures split this into 61,600 tonnes of SAF and 38,400 tonnes of eSAF annually.
That places Liepāja inside a wider European aviation-fuel transition. ReFuelEU Aviation already requires a gradual increase in sustainable aviation fuel use at EU airports, including a separate synthetic aviation fuel sub-mandate from 2030. For a port and special economic zone, this creates a new industrial-policy field: not only fuel storage or logistics, but possible production chains around aviation fuel, hydrogen, CO₂ and feedstock.
The visible structure of the Liepāja project now includes several documented elements: an aviation-sector investor, a licensed fuel technology, EU regulatory demand, port land, an environmental-assessment process and a planned CO₂ terminal.
Other elements remain part of the next project stages: renewable hydrogen, biogenic CO₂ supply, feedstock, financing, offtake, certification and construction.
One existing element is unusual for a Baltic port: Liepāja already has a specialised potable-water export terminal at Oskara Kalpaka Street 117. It was not built for SAF. The terminal was developed by SIA EIPU as a drinking-water export facility and was commissioned in 2024. LIFEBLNC presents the Liepāja facility as a water terminal with 94,000 m³ of storage capacity, a 4,000 m³/h pumping station, treatment infrastructure, a dedicated pipeline and loading arms.
This does not make the water terminal a SAF facility. It does show, however, that one rare utility and logistics asset already exists in the port area. The original business case was bulk drinking-water export by sea. The SAF/eSAF project now places that infrastructure inside a different industrial context.
For Liepāja SEZ, the current SAF project therefore connects several layers: aviation capital, fuel technology, EU regulation, port-side location, a planned CO₂ terminal and an existing water-logistics asset built before the SAF project for another commercial use. The next stages of the project will show how these elements are joined with hydrogen, CO₂, feedstock, financing, offtake and construction.
Data card
- Location: Liepāja Special Economic Zone, Latvia
- Project company: NorSAF, formerly GI Termināls
- Strategic aviation investor: Avia Solutions Group
- Technology partner: KBR, PureSAF technology
- Planned SAF/eSAF capacity: 100,000 tonnes per year
- ASG split: 61,600 tonnes SAF and 38,400 tonnes eSAF per year
- Related infrastructure: potable-water export terminal at Oskara Kalpaka Street 117
- Water terminal capacity: 94,000 m³ storage; 4,000 m³/h pumping station
- Commissioned: 2024
- Project elements still to be joined: hydrogen, biogenic CO₂, feedstock, financing, offtake, certification and construction