The SAF Podcast

The SAF Podcast: World Bank - Blended finance and growing emerging markets

• SAF Investor • Season 2 • Episode 22

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In this episode, Oscar had the pleasure of speaking with Binyam Raja, Global Practice Manager for Transport, World Bank.

The conversation focused on a crucial aspect of the SAF industry: promoting production in non-OECD countries and expanding the global network of SAF production. Binyam shared valuable insights on the World Bank's efforts to support developing economies in participating in the SAF value chain, highlighting the economic and environmental benefits this could bring.

We explored several key topics, including:

  1. The World Bank's role in conducting feasibility studies and techno-economic analyses in countries like Kenya, South Africa, Nigeria, and Ethiopia.
  2. The World Bank's efforts to integrate the climate agenda into developing countries' transport sectors
  3. The importance of blended finance and risk-sharing mechanisms to attract private investment.
  4. Regional approaches to aggregating demand and harmonizing policies.
  5. The potential for SAF production to contribute to rural development and sustainable agriculture (including the potential of cacti as a feedstock in the Arid Sahel region) 
    • Balancing SAF production with food security concerns
    • Potential for SAF to improve agricultural productivity and contribute to reforestation efforts

Binyam also discussed the World Bank's efforts to create partnerships between various stakeholders, including governments, private sector entities, and other multilateral development banks, to accelerate SAF adoption in developing countries. 

This episode offers a comprehensive look at the global potential for SAF production and the steps being taken to make it a reality in emerging markets. If you are interested in risk mitigation strategies in Non-OECD countries, the importance of demand aggregation and how SAF can be a regenerative source for both the land and emerging economies.

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure you check out our previous one with Frank Schreurs, GAFT: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2202964/15507196

Speaker 1:

Hello and welcome to the latest episode of the SAF podcast. This week we're delighted to be joined by Binyam Reja from the World Bank, and today we are going to be looking at primarily promoting SAF production in non-OECD countries and spreading the network of production around the world. Binian, how are you?

Speaker 2:

I'm good. Thank you, Oscar, and thanks for inviting me to your podcast.

Speaker 1:

Absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for joining us. So before we get into the main topic of the day, do you just want to take us through your background, as well as the World Bank and what the World Bank's doing in sustainable aviation fuel?

Speaker 2:

Great. Thank you again, oscar. So my name is Bini Amreja. I'm the Global Practice Manager for Transport at the World Bank. Under this role, I lead our technical teams in all the transport sub-sector fields and topics to develop strategies and lending, business development, lending programs, innovations.

Speaker 2:

Within our unit we have all the key global leads 37 people that I manage in various topics within the transport sector, sustainable aviation being one of them, of course. But we also have maritime urban mobility, e-mobility, decarbonizing transport, logistics and trade facilitation decarbonizing transport, logistics and trade facilitation. So that we've been really, over the last couple of years, looking at how does the whole climate agenda fit in for developing countries, for the non-OECD countries, as you said, and all the subsectors We've worked on electric mobility, its relevance for developing countries, shipping decarbonization for developing countries, how they can participate and, more recently, how sustainable aviation can actually support many of our countries. You may have seen, over the last couple of years we produced one flagship report to see whether SAF makes economic sense for developing economies and what are the barriers, how can they be participating in the value chain, etc. So that has actually put the debate on SAF broader to many emerging economies and developing countries, so that this doesn't remain an OECD country topic.

Speaker 1:

So I'm glad you mentioned the report that the World Bank did. This sort of flagship report was in 2022. Correct. I'm just curious about what, if there are sort of any developments, and how you see the SAF industry changing since that report's been written. Have there been movements in the right direction on that front?

Speaker 2:

Well, there has been quite a lot of movements point of view. They see SAF as a space that they can participate in, especially in the value chain of the aviation fuel industry. You know it was jet fuel, the traditional fuel. If you have, if you don't have the fossil buried under your ground, there is no way you can participate in the traditional fuel economy. But with SAF there are so many avenues for many of our developing country clients to participate.

Speaker 2:

So we have been doing case studies in four countries so far, in Africa primarily these's Kenya, south Africa, nigeria and Ethiopia to see what are the feedstocks that they have available, which ones can they leverage, which also can be partly also processing of the feedstocks themselves.

Speaker 2:

So we want to move on just from selling or getting them to produce just only feedstocks, but also to add value and to put in processing as well. Kenya, for example, now has a project supported by our international finance corporation, ifc, which is the private sector arm of the World Bank, producing feedstocks, but the feedstock is exported to Europe. So in the next phase the hope is we can create some processing work there as well. Nigeria is now developing a big refinery and we're exploring the possibility whether there could be a co-production or co-processing of SAF. So there are a number of things that are happening from the client country's point of view, from the industry players point of view. They're also seeing developing economies as a source of this fuel value chain right, both from a feedstock point of view, from processing point of view. So we've seen quite a bit of interest as well from the industry to look at developing economies in a different light.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, another aspect that sort of leans into this is a lot of the sort of growth in sort of airline, sort of aviation traffic is now being driven by these sort of non-OECD developing countries and the ability for them to move up the value chain towards production. As you say, not every country's got this vast pool of oil or fossil fuels that they can tap into. That's really critical in sort of building those economies, isn't it?

Speaker 2:

Absolutely Well. First, I think what you said is really critical is really critical excuse me, critically important in terms of the growth of aviation is happening, you know, in asia, latin america, africa. So just by virtue of those economies growing, and then they have the population for it, you know, economic growth, this, just the demand for air transport, is going to balloon in those emerging economies. So well, now, one is this is a good thing, because air transport is critical for economic connectivity, for economic growth. We don't want to discourage air travel at all, because if a country is developing and if it's moving, then they need to travel. So that's not the point. But the point here is is there a way this future travel demand can be met sustainably? And this is where I think developing countries can play a major role in supplying and using sustainable aviation fuel. So we really, if we wanna decarbonize aviation, we can't decarbonize it just only by focusing in Europe and US, which is really the current primary focus. So you know my conversation with people in the industry and donor governments.

Speaker 2:

I'm always trying to make the point that transport decarbonization has to happen in developing countries.

Speaker 2:

You know, of course, it's the fact that those countries only contribute a small part of the carbon emission currently and historically, but moving forward, as their economy grows, they will be a big source of emissions and carbon emissions. So we need to really work with them. We need to provide them the technical assistance, the policy advice and the funding and financing that they need to decarbonize their transport sector. So we have an economic case to work on transport, air transport and aviation. We also have a climate imperative to do it. But at the same time also we have the industrial development and agricultural development aspect to it when you bring in SAF, especially because the production of feedstocks is connected to the agriculture sector, depending on the type of feedstocks you use, and what SAF is going to allow us to do is to introduce more climate-informed agriculture production, more productive agriculture, so that it also doesn't affect food production and food security in those countries. So we see this SAF space really addressing multiple development and climate agenda.

Speaker 1:

When you look at these sort of techno-economic analysis, like you're doing in Kenya and South Africa and Ethiopia, are they more complicated than if you were doing it in a developed country, say in Europe, because they still have to go through the process of looking at the availability of feedstock, which process would work in the region where they are. Are there added challenges when you are taking it to these developing countries?

Speaker 2:

well, you know clearly, yes, it's more challenging. Uh, first, you don't have the ecosystem to actually do this type of stuff. Some countries they've been already in the, like Brazil. They have been in the biofuel space for a long time, so it's much easier. Then there is always the issue related to food security that you really need to take into account, because we don't want to make it a trade-off between food security and SAF. I mean that would be crazy. So that's not the objective and we don't think. Also, this is not the point at this point in time. I think there is a way you can leverage the production of feedstocks for SAF to actually contribute in improving the productivity of agriculture, because a lot of the investors for feedstock would come with new technology, with new climate, smart technology that could actually boost agricultural productivity. Secondly, we're also using um.

Speaker 2:

Most of our priorities really when it comes to agriculture still agriculture west, forestry west, and using the degraded land. You know, for example, uh I was discussing recently was one of my colleagues that they want to look into the Sahel, the arid. There's a lot about reforestation etc. But if you look into some arid plants that can grow in arid zones, that could be a good source of reforestation, get all the climate benefits and at the same time produce stuff like.

Speaker 2:

Things that have come to me recently are cactus, as one you know that grows in northern Ethiopia and then, you know, in Mexico. They have it, so several places in Africa. So those are the kind of things that we look at, so you know. So the feasibility study that we do in those countries is much more complex. It has to take into account all these different elements, the establishment of the ecosystem, the trade-off with food or other type of sources, and, of course, you know the entire source of funding and financing, the pricing for it that has to come to make the project economically viable and financially feasible. Those kind of things are quite super important.

Speaker 1:

So what's the wider role of multilateral financing institutions in encouraging the investment in these spaces? Because it's very well doing all these analyses and working out feasibility of projects, but actually unlocking the capital to make them a reality is a much bigger challenge, arguably. So how, how are you going about looking at that problem?

Speaker 2:

yeah, so you're right. Uh, now, first was basically to make the case for SAF to be part of the development agenda, and especially within rural and agricultural development agenda. We are continuing to make that case. So then we look at it then, what would be the role of the public sector and what would be the private sector? Yeah, you're absolutely right. How do we unlock private capital for this space? Because this shouldn't be also in the books of the government? They have a lot more priority on SAF many emerging economies but they can use maybe a small amount of seed money from World Bank and other concession financing to create the market. So our role in the NDBs is basically to provide the technical assistance and the funding when governments come to us.

Speaker 2:

We don't have any financing from the public sector yet on this space right now. It's mostly on feasibility study and other things, but would be to support the public infrastructure that's going to be needed for the production of that. It could be the connectivity to the area or it could be the production of feedstocks, and that would require a public sector. So, as you know, saf costs a lot more than the traditional fuel. There is a big delta between the jet fuel currently being used and SAF. So first, I think we have to help in reducing the cost of production and that is where I think the IVRD type of financing, world Bank type of financing can come in through the public sector channel to provide the infrastructure and the feedstock, development etc.

Speaker 2:

Um, then at some point, you know, if governments need it, we can also look into, uh, the incremental financing, especially we're trying to get the climate funds into that. So what would be their road? I mean here, if they can finance, after we're done, still, the, the gap between the commercial price, uh, and what we, what we should, would think that people can afford to pay for. That's one option for uh, the, the mdbs as well, to support, um, yeah, yeah. And then, I think, the private sector. We think that the private sector, both domestic and international, can come into this space. So it's about really creating the policy environment and the conditions, both on infrastructure and on technical capability, additional concessional financing or grants that would really unlock private sector capital and make this thing a thing.

Speaker 1:

Basically, Because one of the sort of initial worries and sort of challenges relating to this specifically is the sort of increased capex. The capex for initial refinery is huge for any refinery anywhere around the world, but in these regions in particular there is a higher risk premium on top of that capex which often makes it prohibitive, or can make it prohibitive to actually get these projects underway. So the big challenge is lowering that as much as possible in order to attract the private sector into it, isn't it?

Speaker 2:

No, absolutely. You know, there are of course, risks more more associated, perceived or otherwise, they're there. Well, one is, I think, to reduce the risk, in my view, is to create the demand. So we have to find a way that there is predictable demand and sustainable demand. Anyway, we could do that through working through off-tech agreements supporting this production entities that would be established to have a direct relationship. We can facilitate the off-tech agreements with them. And also, especially in the context of Africa or smaller countries in Latin America and others, you can aggregate the demand that they need through some aggregation mechanism, so creating maybe a regional SAF facility that can actually look into, ok, what are those countries, what is their demand for SAF, and then go to the producer as a group in some way. So that's, I think, on addressing the economic fundamentals that would actually make the project unviable. It adds the risk. And then there are other policy changes, risk et cetera, and those things.

Speaker 2:

We have a guaranteed product that we also provide a risk guarantee, risk sharing mechanisms, funds and other philanthropies to use their funding for credit enhancement as well, for example, for taking first loss position, this kind of position, so that way the private sector can be comfortable in taking the risk in favor.

Speaker 2:

So there's some, some entity, some way of backing them in case this project doesn't come to fruition. So you know, the key is really for MDBs and all the different concession of financing to blend their financial resources and instruments and then use it together and strategically allocate the type of different funding and different instruments we have. You know, for financing the delta, the top up doing risk sharing arrangement, uh, financing infrastructure. So if you really financing infrastructure, so if you really blend it and come together, then this could, we can crack the net. The problem is the coordination is quite difficult and we have to work quite hard with all the mdbs and we're trying to do now. We have a program for electric mobilities in Africa where we're trying to work with different MDBs and pulling all of our resources together. So the SAF agenda, hopefully, will also follow a similar arrangement.

Speaker 1:

You mentioned a couple of things there that I want to sort of dig into a bit more. You were talking about the demand side of the equation in terms of limiting risk or mitigating risk. Is there a danger that if the demand signal isn't strong enough from these developing countries, that they could be left behind by the more developed sort of regions that are looking at this where there are the stronger demand signals, because the money realistically would just flow there if there is the demand signals. So is that something you've got to work carefully on?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean absolutely, I mean right now even we're seeing it right the demand, the off-takers are a few entities.

Speaker 2:

We know that a lot of the SAF being produced, for example, are being sold in California because of the incentives and other things that they had there, which is fair.

Speaker 2:

But we will have to see mean how this thing, how the market evolves. Of course, if there is a stronger demand and better pricing, the producer obviously is going to go to those ones. But hopefully, as the market develops and there's like international consensus that all countries should have, so the production will need to increase and we'll be able to meet all the demands. So right now, even if the developing countries, those production of SAF is done on those countries and they're supporting the OECD flights or the flights maybe in a few countries in developing economies, that's a good starting point, I I think, for us, and then we'll see. And as the commitment from those countries also goes for doing SAF in their own respective countries, I think that can be another impetus to increase the demand. But the key is even in the demand in the advanced countries, um, to work with them and to to to make sure there is stable, a large volume, uh, demand for staff that's going to be produced in those countries so are we looking sort of more towards the medium long term?

Speaker 1:

if we're thinking 2050 emissions targets in these regions, we're looking late 2030s, 2040s is really when these countries are going to start making their impact.

Speaker 2:

Correct. Yeah, so you know the thing about it is in the international sphere, you know, unlike, for example, the IMO, where, you know, clean shipping is now becoming a big thing. Uh, we have our countries are pronouncing their own electric vehicle transition. We haven't seen that much for their own flights. Again, there are only very few countries, like, for example, in africa I think ethiopian airlines is the biggest airline there in the region, but I don't think they have like a policy.

Speaker 2:

We're going to go south, they're interested in it and we're going to work with them, but there is no set target. So I think so the next phase, perhaps even for us and for the international communities to create this consensus on saying, okay, we need some targets. So I haven't seen any targets for SAF in emerging economies where they say 2040, 2050, whatever may be that we will have X percent of the fuel with SAF. So, yeah, so it's gonna be a medium term, I imagine, because we just don't have any sight on what they're going to do, even in those countries that are going to do voluntarily going to the SAF business, because if they see the writing on the wall, if they see that this is going to be the way to go. They're going to start going there too. So many airline companies, as you know, here in the US you know they're using SAF, even if it costs them more. There was very limited government support on it.

Speaker 1:

I mean, one of the regions that sort of epitomizes that I think is is in Latin America. The airlines do seem to be more proactive when it comes to SAF. They are getting engaged, working with projects across the region. And you mentioned this sort of aggregating demand. I think Latin America is a really good example of that right now because it's look, it's got Brazil with a really strong biofuels market. But there are other countries within the region with similar climates, similar access to sort of different, slightly different feedstocks, but there is this sort of regional aggregated effort going on there.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, absolutely. The Latin American region is really very good for this One. As you say, they have this biofuel tradition which you know needs to be more sustainable and needs to look into most of Colombia. We also have an engagement with them. Mexico is another country, especially in this arid agriculture type of thing. They seem to be going on that. So, because if you take all these big countries and the small countries around Central America, caribbean, you can start aggregating the demand. So we need to create a kind of an aggregation mechanism, a facility to actually look at it in the aggregation space.

Speaker 1:

You mentioned the work you're doing in Colombia and that's really interesting because you're looking at the feasibility of palm oil, which you say palm oil in SAF, and everyone sort of immediately thinks the worst and thinks that it's not sustainable, it can't be done sustainably. But the fact that you're looking into it in collaboration with government in Colombia suggests that might not necessarily the case and is not as clear cut as everyone sort of initially jumps to thinking.

Speaker 2:

So, yes, I mean, you know palm oil is a very tough issue. Traditionally it has not been very good, just the production of palm oil. I don't know too much details, to be honest, on our Colombian engagement because that's being led by our agriculture colleagues, but my understanding is that we need to figure out where all this kind of agriculture products, irrespective of what they are. They don't come at the expense of, first of all, food security. They don't come at the expense of climate degradation, they don't make things worse. That's basically the key. You know the first phase of biofuels. You know we all know that that wasn't a good success story. But I think the new generation biofuels is very different. It's looking into feedstocks that, like I said earlier, that can actually contribute into the productivity of the agricultural sector itself, into the rural development of those countries. It's about land reclamation. We're doing it in degraded land, arid land. So those are the kind of innovations we want to bring.

Speaker 1:

Something you mentioned earlier that I want to come back to is this blended finance and the guarantee programmes to de-risk and incentivize private investment. Yeah, isn't? The challenge with that is setting it at a level where it's suitable for sort of the public finance side of the equation, but also for the producer side of it, because if they're left with too much of the guaranteed premium to make up on their side, it's also prohibitive, but you don't want to overly leverage the public side. So finding that balance whilst communicating with all these different parties and financial institutions it it's a big challenge that needs to be overcome.

Speaker 2:

No, absolutely uh so needs to be overcome. No, absolutely so. I mean risk sharing mechanism. It's more of an art, I would say. You know you really need to figure out how you can allocate the risks appropriately to the entity that should be taking the risk. You know you don't want to transfer too much risk to the private sector, but you also want to keep it on the risks with the private sector. Then you create I mean with the public sector because you can create all kinds of perverse incentive and what economists call the moral hazard situation.

Speaker 2:

So you know, keeping that in mind, um, so what? What again, you need we really need to look at it a little bit more the entire value chain. When you allocate the risk, okay, where is the risk? Is it on the off-taker or is it on the production? And then the different funding and financing sources will be different for that as well, because the soft space or any kind of energy transition space, it's really, it's a value chain approach, it's an ecosystem approach that you have to deal with and the public sector funding can actually start investing on certain of those space, so that by the time it gets to the private capital, then they're really only looking at the commercial aspect of it. So they are going to be focused on really delivering the SAF into the end user.

Speaker 2:

So, yeah, I mean this is in my mind when we talk about blended finance, risk sharing mechanisms or risk mitigation measures. I don't see that. I don't see it as a one financing and one risk risk mitigation measure and you just give it to one corporate. It is. You would have to unbundle the different value chains, the different investment needs, and use your source of funding that makes sense to that. So, for example, you don't want the private sector to be responsible for doing the infrastructure for production of feed stocks. That is the kind of things.

Speaker 1:

Yeah but there's a in that there's a difficult balance between you know. There is an element of urgency in this the climate People are calling it a climate emergency. There is an element of speed that needs to be associated with this, but, on the other side, these are very complicated whole value chain issues that need to be resolved. So and the projects themselves take five, seven, eight years to go from studies to being commercialised commercialized. So it it's a fine balance between, you know, working deliberately, quickly to resolve these issues, whilst also finding the balance that suits each individual project and the whole value chain associated with that yeah, so yeah, I mean, the climate imperative is here already and we need to accelerate and scale our interventions.

Speaker 2:

So this is why the partnership and the collaboration is going to be super important, because one financial entity, whether it's World Bank or whether the Inter-American Development Bank in LAC, asian Development Bank in Asia, we're not going to be able to solve it with that. So the resources that are going to be needed are just immense. You know, you've seen all this quotes or figures, people who for the climate initiative, you know in the trillions for developing countries. So the resource is high. So, partnering and collaborating and pulling resources together and using those limited resources that we have much more smartly those limited resources that we have much more smartly, where it can actually get the private sector to accelerate and bring their financing, that's going to be the key and it's going to be very difficult to do, it's very complex to do.

Speaker 2:

The transaction cost of partnering and collaborating is really extremely high because people are not used to this. People are mostly used to doing their own project. You know you want to do an airport project. You can identify it, you can define it, you can appraise it and attach financing to it and here you go. But in an energy transition, in a SAF type of work where the demand is uncertain, when there are different ecosystems that need to be developed from scratch, the market needs to be created. It's a different business model, even a different development finance model, that you have to think. The traditional project approach, district activity approach, is not going to cut it. So it's just something that we need to do as partners all over the world in bringing private sector into this as well.

Speaker 1:

Do you think there's enough interest, in terms of people actually currently producing SAF or the large technology licences, in terms of looking at these emerging markets, or do you think there's an element of sort of drawing them in to show them the potential, or are they sort of already engaged? What? How's your feeling?

Speaker 2:

well, I think I mean, depending on the country, probably all those three apply. Uh, there are some countries that are quite advanced and engaging with the private sector. Uh, I mentioned even kenya, for example. They're producing feedstock already to be processed and produced in Europe.

Speaker 2:

So, but there is still a need to do policy promotion, advocacy, I would say, making the case, making the economic case for them, because you have to see it from a developing country point of view. What is the? You know, if they have scarce resources, which one is going to give them the best return in terms of economic development? And also on climate, should they put their resource funding on adapting to climate change or mitigating emissions from? You know many buses that are running in their own cities and emitting a lot? Or is it safe? So there's a lot of many of this issue that we are looking into. So, yeah, so I think in those emerging economies, we have to look at them also, you know, case by case in which country, but at the same time, having that regional approach to aggregate the demand and harmonize policies and to create the market at the regional level.

Speaker 1:

You mentioned at the beginning that you cover multiple different industries. You're not just aviation and you're not just looking at SAF. Is SAF one of the more complex thing you're dealing with? Because obviously, when you look at this climate issue, there are so many different aspects to it. There's the sort of producing green hydrogen aspect, there's the electrification aspect, there's the SAF aspect. Is there an element of you know just go for the low hanging fruit, the easier ones, to make the most difference in the short term, or is that you know working on sort of the longer term solutions?

Speaker 2:

No, no, the way we approach it within the World Bank, you know, everything is a development paradigm. As long as it makes a development sense, it's going to contribute to the growth and sustainability of countries. We invest on it to understand it and provide solution. So I have a team focused on SAF. We have a team on maritime. I always say we're not a specialized international organization, so we do all topics in development.

Speaker 2:

People thought you need to be selected, prioritized, but I usually don't subscribe to that view because people in countries need us for pretty much everything and we have to figure out and find the resources to address all of it. I think it's mostly, you know, from our, you know, icsf equally a priority as the urban mobility space or the maritime space. So I fully supportive and we have a team to do it. I think the challenge is on getting, first of all, countries to be interested in this Many are now interested and then also the industry, the private sector, because we want to see, we want them to think emerging economies could be a good place for SAF, because, you know, or for some of the corporate, the industry, emerging economies like big countries, like India, okay, yes, but because they have the scale. But there are other countries that really, especially when I aggregate them, when you see them as a subgroup, they can make a big economic sense.

Speaker 1:

So that's, I think, our challenge now that you've got these conversations with lots of these emerging countries, are you finding conversations with new countries easier? Was it sort of the first conversation with the initial countries looking at SAF more complex and then now you can say we're working in Kenya and Ethiopia and then within that region those conversations about encouraging SAF become easier because they see examples of their regional neighbours engaging in it?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean eventually. I mean the hope is to reach there where people are saying, ok, I want SAF in my countries. We're not there yet, but I think those countries are the ones we want to produce some good cases, some initial projects. But you know, we have, say, some interpoint in Latin America, in Asia as well as Southeast Asia is some places that we also think we can get engaged. But we're not to the point where people are saying for us as well. But there is, I think, partly because they may think that this international environment, the international assistance framework, mdbs, world Bank, they are not really in this space. This is why, you know, when we came out with this publication, then we said, ok, we're very serious on MDB, I mean on SAF, saf, and so there are that many. I think only, if I'm not mistaken, aib, the European Investment Bank, is the only one that did the funding and financing of a SAF project.

Speaker 1:

So a couple of questions to finish. Of the countries that you're currently engaged in, which one are you most excited about in terms of SAF production?

Speaker 2:

Well. So they all have different angles. I think Kenya is quite advanced. They already are producing feedstock. So if we can also do more there, help them in creating the processing facility and get the whole body chain to the fueling and the airport for other aircrafts, so that would be great. I think Ethiopia seems, more recently, to be quite keen on this. Uh, they have, uh, some few stocks that they could use and then they also have a big uh airline you know they're like have now there, so they do a big presence. Boeing just opened an office and stuff like that there, so that could be a good one. I mean all of them.

Speaker 2:

South Africa is a big hub as well, and now in South Africa we wanna also connect them with the neighboring countries where the feedstocks can be produced. So Zambia, for example, is interested neighboring countries where the feedstocks can be produced. So Zambia, for example, is interested in producing feedstocks, so they can maybe the production process can be in South Africa. So that's the angle we're looking at in more of a regional integration in terms of the production of SAF. Nigeria is more about the co-production of SAF, with a big refinery that Nigeria is building in there. So if we can actually get them to do that, then that would be a big one, and then the feedstock can be can come from different countries.

Speaker 2:

Like I mentioned, I was talking to one colleague who was active in this international space. You know the Sahel region, for example. There is a lot of degraded land. They're looking into reforestation and they were asking me whether there is, and they were asking me whether there is. This thing can make sense For me. There are those arid plants or plants that grow in an arid area, such as cactus. It's not part of the feedstock approved by ICAO yet, but I think eventually this is something we want to look at and then produce the feedstock on those neighboring countries and use this massive production facility. So they're all exciting in their own way yeah, you've done.

Speaker 1:

You've done the classic. Ask you to pick your favorite child and you've just named them all.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, exactly, no, I, I. My trick is uh, you know, I say to my first daughter you're my favourite first daughter.

Speaker 1:

So Kenya's your favourite Kenyan South country? Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2:

Or my son. He's my favourite son, Because I only have one son.

Speaker 1:

But anyway yeah. So final question and you kind of touched on it a bit there Of the countries you're not involved with, which one are you really keen to get involved with and think there's loads of potential for getting involved in SAF? Well, I mean, you can't name every country now. No, no, no, I don't have to name.

Speaker 2:

No, no, yeah, not all of them are my favourites at this point in time. Some of them are my favorite at this point in time, some of them are not. But I think the big countries we already mentioned, the ones in Latin America, I think, is a good space for us to be really part of those countries. And then you have in Southeast Asia. But there is a challenge of the palm oil there, because you know Indonesia, it's a big economy, big country, but their feedstock is palm oil. It's really super controversial, so that's not an easy nut to crack. But then you have, you know, the cooking oil and, as you know, that's what actually they're doing in singapore the the production of saffuses, cooking oils from southeast asia. But we haven't really, uh, looked at deeply in any of those countries. But I see latin america, southeast asia, to be the next frontier excellent.

Speaker 1:

Part of me is really disappointed. You didn't give a really niche country like the Seychelles and just come up with this grand plan of just somehow getting a massive refinery in the Seychelles.

Speaker 2:

No, not that one, I think. For those countries we just want to make sure they get all the tourists, but travelling sustainably.

Speaker 1:

That is. That's an excellent note to end on. Thank you so much for your time. That was a total force in the emerging markets. That was excellent.

Speaker 2:

Great. Thank you so much, oscar, oscar, for this conversation. It was really fun, thank you,