Erigo Group, Neutral Fuels partner to build UCO biodiesel plant in Oman

Dubai-based Neutral Fuels Holdings Ltd. has signed a strategic partnership agreement with the Erigo Group that will result in what Neutral Fuels says will be the first biodiesel production facility in the Sultanate of Oman, on the Arabian Peninsula. The biodiesel plant, to be located in Muscat and initially scaled at close to 800,000 gallons per year (gpy), will utilize locally collected used cooking oil (UCO) as feedstock. The agreement is expected to result in cooperation between the two companies to develop multiple plant sites.

Both companies have received endorsement from the Oman Environmental Services Holding Company, known as Be’ah, which is responsible for all waste management throughout Oman.

Funded by London-based Neutral Capital Finance PLC through the region’s first certified green bond, Neutral Fuels built in 2011 the first licensed biofuels production facility in the Gulf Cooperation Council—a regional political and economic union now called the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf—and now has operations in Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Dubai, and Delhi, India.

Erigo runs UCO and biofuel operations in Qatar, Malaysia, Tunisia, the Philippines and India, and the company is certified to the International Sustainability and Carbon Certification system. The firm has relationships with thousands of restaurants across the region.

“This is exactly the sort of business synergy the world needs now to reduce carbon footprint[s] and take dangerous waste out of the food chain,” said Karl Feilder, CEO of Neutral Fuels. “Combining our technical expertise across multiple locations will bring benefits to every country in which we each operate.” Feilder added that this arrangement will recycle all of Oman’s UCO into biodiesel.

Haksar CH, CEO of Erigo, said, “This agreement is a game-changer in the region. It provides vertical supply chain integration across one of the most challenging markets in the world and will produce major local environmental benefits in each of those locations.”

Feilder told Biobased Diesel Daily that, although the initial productive capacity of the Muscat, Oman-based plant will be approximately 800,000 gpy, it will be scalable to nearly 3.2 million gpy as required.

The new facility will also utilize Neutral Fuels’ proprietary technology for digitally tracking waste and biofuel.