Date: 02/06/2024

With a lot of momentum and efforts done by all Egyptian stakeholders being witnessed to facilitate and push forward the development of low carbon hydrogen economy in Egypt.

The Environmental Compliance Office (ECO SD) in collaboration with the Organization of Economic Cooperation & Development (OECD) and the Development Finance Advisers (DFA) concluded a step in their cooperation by co-organizing a stakeholder meeting with the aim of fostering open dialogue and discussions among all concerned sector stakeholders regarding the challenges and potential for developing low-carbon hydrogen in Egypt.

The meeting started with opening remarks form delivered by Eng. Ahmed Kamal, ECO SD Executive Director, Ms. Jo Tyndall, Director of OECD Environment Directorate, Mr. Ayman Soliman, Chief Executive Officer of the Sovereign Fund of Egypt, Dr. Eng. Sherif ElGabaly, Head of the African Affairs Committee, Egyptian Parliament/Head of the Peace and Security Committee African Parliament,  Dr. Eng. Ahmed Mohamed Meheina, First Undersecretary for Strategic Planning, Performance Follow up and International Cooperation, Ministry of Electricity and Renewable Energy and Dr. Heba Youssef, Director of the Country Program Monitoring Unit, Ministry of Planning and Economic Development.

We were honored by the participation of Dr. Hala El-Said, Minister of Planning and Economic Development, participated (via video conference), Dr. Hala El-Said affirmed her happiness to participate in the stakeholder meeting on promoting low-carbon hydrogen development in Egypt, which was conducted within the activities of Project 5.3 of the Country Program for Egypt with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) on financing and mobilizing investment in the field of clean energy in Egypt.

The workshop brought together a diverse group of stakeholders, including representatives from the Ministry of Electricity and Renewable Energy, the Ministry of Petroleum, the Ministry of Trade and Industry, the Suez Canal Economic Zone, the League of Arab States, UNIDO, GIZ, EBRD, the British Embassy in Cairo, civil Society, think tanks focused on the hydrogen landscape, and industry representatives from the fertilizers, iron and steel, cement, and petrochemical sectors.

Following the opening session, two key presentations were delivered form Ms. Moongyung Lee, Policy Analyst, OECD on OECD’s low – carbon hydrogen implementation progress and Eng. Adel Taha, Sustainable Development Expert, ECO-FEI on Egypt’s Industrial low carbon hydrogen demand and landscape.

The stakeholders meeting also included three important roundtable discussions; The first roundtable “Egypt’s Industrial Low-Carbon Hydrogen Domestic Demand and Local Manufacturing Capacity” moderated by Eng. Ahmed Kamal, Excutive Director, ECO-FEI and the participation of Eng. Rami Saleh – Chief Business Development and Sustainability Officer – Marakbi Steel, Dr. Mahmoud Abu El Enien – Group Sustainability Director- Royal Cement, Mr. Ayman Haiba, Chairman – Sustainable Energy Development Association, Eng. Omar ElSharkawi, Sustainability Lead – Fertiglobe and Ms. Shimaa Zaatar – CEO, Madkour Foundation.

The second roundtable “Exploring the success factor for low-carbon projects in Egypt “moderated by Mr. Deger Saygin, Industry Programme Lead, OECD and the participation of Eng. Borhan Elsayed, Business Development and New Initiative Manager, ENI, Mr. Marwan Assar, Business Developer, Scatec and Chemist Abd El Mageed Hegazy, Chairman, KIMA.

The third roundtable “Enabling market condition for more private capital mobilisation” moderated by Ms. Moongyung Lee, Policy Analyst and the participation of Mr. Ibrahim Hammam, Senior Economic Analyst, LYNX, Fabio Grandchamp, Executive Vice President, Complexo de pecém (Brazil Port authority) (Virtual), Matthieu Boisson, Managing Director, CertifHY (Virtual) and Benjamin Denis, Policy Analyst, OECD.

The stakeholders meeting concluded by highlighting key takeaways of the roundtable sessions, open discussions and feedback received from participants.

This meeting represents another important effort taken by ECO-FEI since being involved in the National Committee of Hydrogen headed by Ministry of Electricity and Renewable Energy in 2020, followed by the cooperation between UNIDO/Global Hydrogen Program, ECO-FEI and Polytechnic University of Milan on the Assessment of Low Carbon Hydrogen Production, Demand, Business Models and Value Chain in Egypt.