Minnesota SAF Hub Completes Blending Facility Serving MSP Airport

Delta Air Lines joined Minnesota SAF Hub partners, along with federal and state officials, to mark the completion of a new SAF blending facility at Flint Hills Resources' Pine Bend Refinery. The facility supplies Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport (MSP), Delta's second-largest hub, where the airline uses approximately 250 million gallons of jet fuel annually.

What the Facility Actually Does

The facility blends neat SAF with conventional jet fuel produced at Pine Bend, then delivers the blend to MSP via an existing 10-mile pipeline, avoiding the need for new dedicated transport infrastructure. It is designed to handle up to 30 million gallons of neat SAF annually, using rail unloading systems, large-volume storage tanks, underground pipelines, filtration systems and a dedicated testing laboratory. The neat SAF itself is produced in Montana, railed to Pine Bend, and blended and certified there before onward delivery; Shell Aviation supplies the neat SAF and related logistics expertise.

The Coalition Behind the Project

The Minnesota SAF Hub, a coalition formed in 2023 by Delta, Greater MSP Partnership, Bank of America, Ecolab and Xcel Energy, first announced plans for this specific facility in September 2024. Its completion is one of four milestones the coalition had identified toward building a regional SAF economy; a separate milestone, a "Demand Consortium" including Bank of America, Deloitte, Delta and Ecolab, has also been formed to purchase the first several million gallons of SAF produced under the initiative each year.

Scale Versus Capacity

The facility's 30-million-gallon annual capacity is a ceiling, not a current delivery volume; industry reporting has noted Delta is expected to receive considerably less than full capacity, at least for the first several years of operation. That distinction, built capacity versus actual near-term throughput, is a detail worth noting separately from the completion milestone itself, since the two are often conflated in coverage of infrastructure openings.

What Remains Undisclosed

Delta and Flint Hills Resources have also not named the SAF producer, feedstock type, production pathway, or hydrogen source involved, details that determine the fuel's actual lifecycle emissions benefit but were not included in the completion announcement.

Source: Delta News Hub, 27 July 2026.