Green Sky Capital has signed financing for a 200,000-tonne-per-annum biofuels facility in Ain Sokhna, Egypt, with Shell signing a long-term offtake agreement and Qatar National Bank S.A.E., The Arab Energy Fund, and Ninety One/EAAIF anchoring the lender group.
The announcement describes the project as one of the region’s first project-financed SAF plants. Reaching financing signature with an IOC counterparty offtake in the deal is the bankability signal SAF developers across MENA have been chasing, and the structure on this deal — Gulf strategic sponsors, DFI and sovereign-linked lenders, integrated-oil offtake — is the template the rest of the region will be measured against.
The project sponsors are Al Mana Holding, the Qatari conglomerate, and Vision Invest, the Saudi infrastructure investor. Green Sky Capital, the Doha-based developer, is the project promoter. The 100,000-square-metre site sits inside the Suez Canal Economic Zone (SCZone).
“The signing of this financing marks a defining step in the development of our SAF platform and underscores the strategic importance of this project for the region.” — Ali Shaikh, Chief Executive Officer, Green Sky Capital
The Arab Energy Fund acted as Global Structuring Bank and Co-Mandated Lead Arranger, with Ninety One (through the Emerging Africa & Asia Infrastructure Fund) as Global Mandated Lead Arranger. Qatar National Bank S.A.E. came in as Lender, Onshore Account Bank and Onshore Security Agent, anchoring the local-currency leg of the deal. Axens has signed as technology provider, and SeaOwl holds the EPC contract.
Output is split across SAF, hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO), biopropane, and bionaphtha, giving the plant a multi-product yield slate that hedges any single-stream pricing weakness. Commercial operations are targeted by the end of 2027.
What’s worth watching is the lender list. Sponsors lining up DFI capital (EAAIF), Gulf strategic capital (Arab Energy Fund, Al Mana, QNB), and an integrated-oil anchor offtake (Shell) inside one transaction is the structure other MENA SAF developers will need to replicate to clear FID. The next test is feedstock. Axens Vegan technology can process the full lipid slate — vegetable oils, animal fats, tall oil, used cooking oil — but RED III and CORSIA sustainability rules push HEFA producers toward waste-derived lipids. Whether Egypt can build that waste-lipid supply chain at 200,000 tpa scale is the open question.
Source: Green Sky Capital / Zawya
