Nippon Paper Industries Corp, Sumitomo Corp and Green Earth Institute Corp agreed on Friday to jointly study bioethanol production made from woody biomass, Nippon Paper said in a statement.

The project, if it succeeds, would aim to produce bioethanol from Nippon Paper's mills in the fiscal year of 2027 to be used as a feedstock for the sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) production Japan plans to gradually increase for its aviation industry.

Last month, Japan's top airlines All Nippon Airways (ANA) and Japan Airlines (JAL) expanded their SAF purchases by adding supplies from Japanese trading house Itochu Corp and U.S. producer Raven SR, as they both committed to using SAF to meet 10% of their fuel needs by 2030.