Scania launches biodiesel pilot for buses in Côte d’Ivoire’s capital Abidjan

Biodiesel bus project launched by Scania in Abidjan, the capital city of Côte d’Ivoire, together with a series of partners including TotalEnergies, ANADER and LA SIR.

The pilot aims to reduce emissions from public transport and create jobs through locally produced biofuels.

“Sustainably produced biofuels from waste are currently the best option to rapidly reduce emissions from most of the public transport systems in African countries”, Scania states. Biofuel used as biodiesel will lower carbon emissions by up to 80%, and by even more when used as biogas.

Scania project for biodiesel in Africa

In 2017, Scania initiated a collaboration with Agence Nationale d’Appui au Développement Rural (ANADER), a public agency that supports rural development in Côte d’Ivoire, to find opportunities for producing local biofuels from cocoa and rubber, as well as other agricultural waste and animal manure, all of which are present in abundance in the country. In July 2022, ANADER, Scania and TotalEnergies, a multinational energy company, signed an agreement to develop a pilot project to produce 3,500 litres of FAME biodiesel from rubber seeds and test it for 30 days in a Scania bus operated by the local Abidjan transport company, SOTRA. 

The second phase of the project will start soon with the construction of a new bus depot and a Bus Rapid Transit corridor by Scania and its partners. The system will provide fast, reliable and comfortable public transport services to the residents of Abidjan.

“Together with our partners, we adopted a holistic and step-by-step approach to reduce the carbon footprint and air pollution from our buses,” says Nicolas Lougovoy, Head of Strategic Projects for the Africa, Middle East and Central Asia region at Scania. He adds: “Combining Bus Rapid Transit and buses powered by locally produced biofuel from waste will multiply the positive social and environmental impacts by generating local jobs, extra incomes and significantly reducing carbon footprint and air pollution”.