Egypt has signed 32 MoUs for green hydrogen projects worth a theoretical USD 175 bn, but as of last September, fewer than five had moved past feasibility studies. A new joint program, launched last April by the General Authority for the Suez Canal Economic Zone (SCZone) and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (Unido), is the latest attempt to unstick the pipeline — just as the industry is asking a more fundamental question: should Egypt be selling hydrogen at all?

REMEMBER– The OECD laid out a detailed policy stack last month for moving Egypt’s green hydrogen projects to final investment decision — estimating production costs here at USD 3.7-4.8/kg, more than double the USD 1.8/kg target in our national strategy. Reaching 1.5 mn tons of annual capacity by 2030 alone will require USD 45.6 bn in investment.

What the new program does: The National Clean Hydrogen Program aims to improve Egypt's investment readiness by pushing priority projects past the planning stage through pre-feasibility and feasibility studies. Unido will provide technical and policy support, strengthen institutional and national capacities, and help the SCZone establish a Green Hydrogen Center of Excellence. The initiative also connects local projects to global carbon markets and targets capacity building across government and industry.

A floor, not a ceiling: “The program helps developers address technical standards, certification, workforce development, industrial integration, and regulatory coordination — turning project announcements into investable [prospects],” Hydrogen Egypt cofounder and director Dalia Samir tells EnterpriseAM. The harder work starts when the program ends.

It builds on earlier institutional groundwork: The Unido initiative “builds on a series of ongoing institutional efforts,” H2Intelligence founder Osama Fawzy tells us. The push began in 2023 when representatives from the Egyptian Green Hydrogen High Commission, the Electricity Ministry, and Nile University signed an agreement with Geneva- and London-based Green Hydrogen Organization to lay the foundations for a local center of excellence. Separately, the British University in Egypt’s Faculty of Energy and Environmental Engineering partnered with Renewables Academy — funded by Germany’s International Climate Initiative under the regional Menalinks program — to deliver advanced courses in battery storage, power-to-X applications, and AI in renewable energy sector coupling.

The regulatory gap remains a problem: Egypt has plenty of regulations on paper, but “they often lack clear executive frameworks or the political will for enforcement, leaving them open to broad interpretation,” Fawzy says. That makes EBRD engagement critical. “Projects require coordination across multiple stakeholders — regulators, ports, utilities, land authorities, financing institutions, industrial users, and technology providers. Delays often arise because these elements move at different speeds,” Hydrogen Egypt CEO Khaled Nageib tells us.

The infrastructure is there — developers aren’t: The SCZone allocates 700k-800k sqm plots to developers and has built shared facilities for its green hydrogen cluster in Sokhna, including a desalination plant and a 13.5-km pipeline connecting the cluster to ammonia storage tanks. Developers stand hesitant regardless.

“The single biggest constraint paralyzing the industry is the lack of offtake agreements,” Fawzy says. Developers can’t secure the 70-30 debt-to-equity financing required for a USD 5-7 bn project from international banks without a signed buyer. On the other hand, offtakers are reluctant to lock in at today's price of USD 4.70/kg when prices are expected to fall to USD 3.40-3.50/kg by the time projects go operational. The result? “Banks won't finance without a buyer, and buyers won’t sign without a viable, operational project,” Fawzy tells us.

MDBs can help de-risk: Multilateral development banks can support early-stage feasibility studies, environmental assessments, certification frameworks, and pilot projects through grants and concessional funding — and can provide assurances, blended finance structures, and anchor investments that make projects more bankable. That means combining commercial debt, sovereign support, export credit agencies, and development finance institutions, Samir says.

There’s a domestic case to be made: Rather than exporting green hydrogen to decarbonize European industries, Egypt could use it domestically to clean up its own hard-to-abate sectors — then export the green end products, Fawzy argues. Developers could move faster by targeting sectors where demand already exists: green ammonia, methanol, and low-carbon fertilizers, where international buyers already have procurement programs in place, Samir adds.

Hard-to-abate industries would also gain an immediate edge under the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, while exports would generate foreign currency, attract international investment, and cement Egypt’s position as a regional energy hub, Nageib says.

Or… the government could become the offtaker itself. By raising natural gas prices for heavy industries to international spot market levels — then subsidizing locally produced green hydrogen down to USD 2.50/kg — Egypt could push local factories to transition and export green steel, green cement, and other green commodities directly to Europe, bypassing the offtake deadlock entirely, Fawzy says. Targeted support mechanisms would reinforce the shift: land access, streamlined permitting, renewable energy integration, tax incentives, and concessional financing for decarbonization projects, according to Nageib.

OUR TAKE- Fawzy’s domestic-offtake thesis is a sharp idea, but the political and fiscal architecture needed to deliver it is only partly in place. The first leg — raising industrial gas prices — has happened: a USD 2/mmBtu hike for energy-intensive sectors under a May decree. But Cairo opted for a fixed hike over the flexible, market-linked structure it had been considering — prioritizing IMF-driven fiscal relief over strategic industrial reform. That’s not a posture that easily extends to layering new subsidies on top: closing Fawzy’s USD 1/kg gap at the 2030 target of 1.5 mn tonnes implies USD 1.5 bn a year in fresh hydrogen subsidies, after two years of cutting subsidies on the IMF’s instructions. The conversion capex on the demand side is a separate question again. The idea is the right one; whether Egypt can assemble the package to deliver it is what the next 18 months will tell us.

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