Egypt produces 100 mn tons of waste every year, and three biofuel projects are using portions of it to produce sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), which is expensive, but global aviation mandates are pushing airlines to use it regardless. One project is making biogas through agricultural waste, and two are making biofuel from used cooking oil. The path is forming toward a more integrated waste-to-energy production framework, but it remains limited by the fact that waste materials are collected informally by individuals, rather than businesses.

SOUND SMART- SAF is a specific type of biofuel made from renewable sources, such as used cooking oil, agricultural residue, or animal fats, rather than crude oil. Biogas is a subset of biofuel made from organic waste breaking down in a space with no oxygen. SAF can be blended with or substituted for conventional jet fuel without modifying aircraft and is currently one of the industry’s few near-term paths to cutting emissions.

Egypt has enough agricultural waste to produce biogas, but transportation is difficult. Since moving this waste is expensive, most processing units are placed where the material is produced rather than at centralized plants. The Environment Ministry’s Bioenergy for Sustainable Development Foundation runs a rural development program operating roughly 2k small-scale biogas units across local governorates, which process materials like tree-pruning residue, rice straw, sugarcane waste, and agro-processing byproducts, a ministry official tells us.

Biogas production from agricultural waste is scaling up: The program was expanded in 2024, adding medium-scale units in Beni Suef, Beheira, Assiut, and Alexandria with a combined 162k cbm of annual biogas capacity, according to government data reviewed by EnterpriseAM. A household-scale rollout is following the same path: the foundation has completed 22 units in villages under rural development programs with the Orman Association, with 50 more planned in Aswan.

Agricultural waste has other uses, so energy gets the leftovers. A large share of agricultural waste goes toward compost and animal feed production, including 50k tons of biofertilizer a year from the same foundation, which cuts feed-import needs and reliance on chemical fertilizer. The foundation’s biogas output reached 2.2 mn cbm in 2024, equivalent to roughly 86k butane cylinders. That’s a small fraction of the 35-40 mn tons of agricultural waste Egypt generates each year, which means biogas production has room to grow.

Used cooking oil is being used to produce biofuel. The Egyptian Sustainable Aviation Fuel Company (ESAF) and Honeywell UOP are building a plant in Alexandria that “will produce 120k tons of sustainable aviation fuel a year from used cooking oil,” Bio-Rotterdam Cleantech CEO and Powergreen Biofuel Operation Manager Ibrahim Farouk tells EnterpriseAM. The project, launched in 2024 by ESAF’s parent, the Egyptian Petrochemicals Holding Company (ECHEM), has moved into an advanced development stage, with financing now in progress, per an Oil Ministry statement. The investment now stands at USD 570 mn, up from an original USD 530 mn estimate, with startup targeted for 2029 and expected CO2 savings of 400k tons a year, according to the statement.

Another cooking oil project: Qatar’s Green Sky Capital secured USD 200 mn in financing for its SAFFly Egypt facility in Ain Sokhna, backed by Qatar’s Al Mana Holding and Saudi Vision Invest, with Shell locked in to buy the plant’s entire output starting late 2027. The facility’s 200k-ton annual capacity spans SAF, renewable diesel, and industrial bio-products. We also reported last February that Al Mana Holding is investing USD 15.6 mn in a second biodiesel plant in 10th of Ramadan City, designed to process 100 tons of used cooking oil a day. At that time, the Environment Ministry said Egypt consumes around 2.8 mn tons of edible oil a year, generating roughly 2.6 mn tons of used cooking oil.

As investment in these projects increases, suppliers are doubling down. Used cooking oil (UCO) collection has risen 10% recently as prices firmed up, with some governorate suppliers doubling their volumes, Farouk tells us. “A liter now costs around EGP 50 to collect and sells for EGP 70,” he says — up from the numbers he told us in November 2025, when a liter was bought for EGP 35 and sold for EGP 48. Continued subsidies keep domestic biodiesel prices high, so most production is exported, with local use limited to customers tied to export contracts or environmental certification requirements. The Suez Canal Authority has also begun sourcing biodiesel locally from several of the country’s seven existing UCO-to-biodiesel plants, he adds.

Egypt has doubled its UCO target. “We want to raise collected cooking oil to 1 mn tons a year, out of the 2.5 mn tons Egyptians use annually,” the Environment Ministry official says. That’s double the target of 500k tons of UCO by 2030 that we reported in November 2025.

The government is calling for more investors. Beyond the three projects now underway, the government wants to attract large-scale Gulf-led investment on the model of the Alexandria and Ain Sokhna plants, aiming to build an integrated industry out of the broader waste-to-energy efforts already underway in governorates like Kafr El Sheikh and the Suez Canal cities, the official says.

OUR TAKE- The biogas units sit right next to their necessary materials, but the two biofuel plants rely on informal UCO collection carried out by individuals, not companies. Investment is flowing toward refineries, but not toward the trucks and networks that bring the material in, leaving supply an under-financed and unformalized section of the framework. Until that changes, the two aviation fuel plants, which have a combined 320k tons of annual capacity, will have to keep drawing on the same fragmented system they are supposed to outgrow.

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