enespa & Fueltec Maroc: From plant manufacturer to integrated recycling platform

21 May 2026

The enespa Group, together with its partner Fueltec, is further advancing the international expansion of its recycling activities. The acquisition of Valorise Maroc, an existing recycling company in the Moroccan port city of Tangier, represents far more than just a new recycling project: Morocco marks enespa's next strategic step towards becoming an integrated recycling organization. “Recycling as a Service” model.

enespa holds a stake in Fueltec and supports the project as a strategic technology and development partner. The initial focus is on expanding a comprehensive recycling platform along the value chain, which will later be supplemented by chemical recycling.

Why Morocco is strategically important for enespa

Tangier offers ideal conditions for this model. The region is one of North Africa's most important industrial and logistics centers and is home to numerous international companies in the automotive, industrial, and aerospace sectors. The Tangier Free Zone and the Port of Tangier Med provide direct connections to international supply chains and sales markets.

What makes this particularly attractive is the structure of the available material streams: The focus is on industrial plastic waste, which is significantly purer and of higher quality compared to classic consumer waste. This allows large portions of the materials to be directly fed into mechanical recycling – more efficiently, economically, and with lower energy consumption.

Fueltec not only organizes the processing, but increasingly also the collection and return of recyclable materials directly at the industrial companies on site. In addition to plastics recycling, the model will eventually include aluminum, copper cable, and wooden pallet recycling – the latter with an annual production volume of over one million units at the site.

Expanding an existing platform instead of taking on greenfield risk

A key advantage of the project lies in the planned acquisition of an already operational recycling company. This will give Fueltec immediate access to existing production capacities, regulatory permits, customer relationships, and ongoing material contracts.

Unlike traditional greenfield projects, this platform is not being built from scratch, but rather on the foundation of an already profitable operating business with attractive industrial customers. At the same time, preliminary agreements already exist with international customers such as Repsol for specific feedstock streams.

Chemical recycling as the next step in development

In the long term, chemical recycling will of course remain a key component of the strategy. Looking ahead, the site will be expanded to include pyrolysis capacity in order to process those plastic fractions that cannot be meaningfully recycled mechanically. With this approach, enespa is pursuing a technology-neutral strategy: the decisive factor is no longer the individual recycling method, but rather the best possible return of materials to the economic cycle.

By 2032, Fueltec Maroc plans to process up to 200.000 tons of plastic waste and used tires annually. From that point on, the company aims for annual sales of approximately €192 million and EBITDA of €83,5 million.

Despite all the progress, the gap between aspiration and reality remains visible. Still, less than 20 percent of the plastic components in an end-of-life vehicle are actually recycled. Decomposition processes, material aging, complexity, and economic factors are slowing progress. The good news: the potential is enormous. Every step towards circular materials saves fossil resources, reduces CO2 emissions, and strengthens Europe's resource independence.

Roberto Fiorello (CEO Fueltec) presents the expansion plans to Zsolt Eötvös (CFO enespa ag).

A local model with international scalability

For enespa, the project in Morocco serves as a model. For the first time in a manageable market, an integrated platform is being created that combines collection, logistics, mechanical recycling and, in the future, chemical recycling under one roof.

For enespa, the commitment in Morocco marks the next strategic development step: away from pure plant construction, towards an internationally positioned provider of integrated recycling solutions along the entire value chain.