Sustainable aviation fuel has begun flowing to Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

The airport this week took delivery of its first 7,000-gallon shipment of blended sustainable aviation fuel, or SAF, according to a news release issued by the Minnesota SAF Hub, a coalition of business groups working to bring the new fuel to the state.

Minnesota’s own SAF blending facility isn’t expected to come online until the end of next year, so this first shipment took a winding path to MSP.

The batch of SAF was made, in part, from winter camelina plants grown in both Minnesota and North Dakota. The camelina was first sent for processing at a Cargill plant in West Fargo, North Dakota. Then, it was shipped to Montana Renewables’ facility in Great Falls, Montana, for blending with traditional jet fuel. Planes can’t yet use pure SAF, which is why it needs to be mixed with standard fuel.

From there, Shell shipped the batch of blended SAF to MSP Airport. Delta Air Lines purchased the batch, according to the Minnesota SAF Hub.

A flight from Minnesota to New York on Wednesday afternoon has been designated as the “symbolic first flight to be fueled in part by SAF,” the release said.

“Delta will cover the cost of the SAF that would be needed for flight DL 2732 from Minneapolis to New York in recognition of New York Climate Week, displacing conventional jet fuel that is traditionally used,” the release noted.

Notably, though, all planes refueling at MSP Airport on Wednesday will get some amount of SAF, a spokesman for the SAF Hub said in an email. “The fuel is uplifted to the MSP fuel facility with all of the other aviation fuel. This is then distributed to all planes that are in need of refueling,” the spokesman said.

Peter Frosch, president and CEO of Greater MSP Partnership, said this week’s shipment marks a “major milestone in our push to build a SAF economy anchored in Minnesota.” Greater MSP is leading the Minnesota SAF Hub effort in concert with a host of industry players, including Delta, Cargill, Ecolab, Bank of America, and others.

Still, this week’s 7,000-gallon shipment is just a small fraction of all the jet fuel MSP Airport needs in a single day, let alone an entire year. Last year, Delta, which handles over 70% of flights at MSP, burned through more than 250 million gallons of fuel; in total, all airlines operating at the airport used more than 330 million gallons.

Nevertheless, Frosch hailed this week’s development as a “breakthrough far beyond what we thought possible just six months ago.” He described the camelina as “an innovative regenerative agricultural crop grown in Minnesota.”

Last fall, with Cargill’s help, growers in Minnesota and North Dakota planted 2,000 acres acres of winter camelina for SAF. Earlier this year, Cargill also gave money to the U of M to further study the use of winter camelina and domesticated winter pennycress as transportation fuels.