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Egypt Aluminum Company (Egyptalum) is seeking a 5-billion-Egyptian-pound ($100 million) loan from a consortium of Egyptian and Gulf banks to fund the country’s first aluminum foil manufacturing plant, according to a news report.
The National Bank of Egypt is arranging and managing the dollar-denominated loan, with a final agreement expected to be signed in the fourth quarter of 2026, Asharq Bisiens reported, citing two unnamed sources.
The project’s first phase is expected to produce 25,000 tonnes of aluminum foil annually at an estimated investment of $90 million. Future expansions will raise the project’s total investment to $135 million, the report said, without providing details on the final production capacity.
Egypt Aluminium, which is listed on the Egyptian Exchange, had allocated EGP 1.4 billion within its investment budget for the 2025–2026 fiscal year to fund the first phase of the project, local Arabic language financial news website AlBorsa had reported in October 2025.
Egypt’s annual import bill for aluminum foil is almost $140 million, the report said, citing Kamel El-Wazi, a former Minister of Industry and Deputy Prime Minister for Industrial Development.
In May 2026, the company had signed a strategic partnership agreement with global commodities trading giant Trafigura for a major expansion of its Nag Hammadi Aluminum Complex, with estimated investments ranging between $750 million and $900 million.
Egyptalum is the largest primary aluminum producer in North Africa with a total annual capacity of 320,000 tonnes. Around 60 percent of its exports are destined for the European Union (EU).
(Writing by P Deol; Editing by Anoop Menon)
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