Safaga's Planned 5-Billion-Dollar Fertiliser Complex Targets 15,000 Jobs and a 2027 Start
Project data published by El-Balad puts a timetable and a jobs figure on the phosphate fertiliser complex planned for Safaga: eight phases over seven years from 2027, three million tonnes a year, and about 15,000 direct jobs. No investor, operator or contractor is named.
4 October 2026
A phosphate fertiliser complex planned for Safaga would begin implementation during 2027 and is targeted to create about 15,000 direct jobs, according to announced project data published by the Egyptian outlet El-Balad. Hurghada News reported the complex earlier today, when no timetable and no investor had been named; the figures below are what has since been published about it.
The project carries investments of up to five billion dollars and would be built on 1,000 feddans, in eight phases spread over seven years, El-Balad reported. The announced data give these figures:
- Investment: up to 5 billion dollars
- Start of implementation: during 2027
- Site: 1,000 feddans at Safaga, in eight phases over seven years
- Target capacity: three million tonnes of fertiliser a year
- Output split: 25 percent for the domestic market, 75 percent for export
- Direct jobs targeted: about 15,000
Yasser Hussein Salem, an economic and financial analyst who lectures at private and international universities, told El-Balad that the choice of Safaga was not random: the town's position on the Red Sea and its closeness to Safaga Port give the project a logistical advantage in moving product to foreign markets. He said other phosphate-related projects in the area could help form an integrated industrial chain running from extracting and concentrating the ore through manufacturing to export.
Salem said exporting manufactured fertiliser earns more than exporting raw ore, because the processing happens inside the country, and that the eventual export value would depend on which fertilisers are produced, world prices, and operating and shipping costs. He added that the project should not be judged by the headline investment figure or by the number of people working inside the complex alone, but by the transport, logistics, maintenance and commercial activity that grows around it.
The report names no investor, operator or contractor, gives no date within 2027, and attributes its figures to announced project data rather than a signed contract. For Safaga, a town that lives off its port, its phosphate and its hotels, the number residents will watch is 15,000 — and the one thing the published data does not contain is a commitment from anyone to begin.