Lufthansa is set to expand their bioduel efforts to a new airport for 2015. Beginning in March, Lufthansa will begin to use a blended biofuel kerosene on all flights that depart from Oslo, Norway. This will cover nearly 5,000 departures from Oslo flown by Lufthansa, SWISS, Austrian, Brussels and Germanwings. The blended fuel will be provided Statoil, a Norwegian energy company.

Oslo will be the first airport in the world that will have continuous availability of Bio-Kerosene as plans call for 2.5 million gallons to be delivered to Oslo and pumped directly through its refuelling infrastructure throughout the year.

As part of this long term development process, Lufthansa had previously tested the use of bioduel on regularly scheduled flights between Frankfurt and Hamburg for a year and a half as well as on a long-haul test flight between Frankfurt and Washington DC back in 2012.

Lufthansa has been working on a biofuel alternative for several years and during that time had run extensive testing on a variety of blends from several providers. The challenge, it said, has never been the effectiveness or safety of biofuel but rather finding a sustainable long term supply solution. The key to biofuel’s future success will depend heavily on Lufthansa’s ability to build a reliable network of suppliers who can source the fuel and meet stringent and consistent criteria as to its quality.