The first syndicated financing in Polish biogas: BGK and PKO BP for Neo Biofuel Energy

Bank Gospodarstwa Krajowego (BGK) and PKO Bank Polski financed the purchase and development of agricultural biogas plants owned by Neo Biofuel Energy, a subsidiary of Neo Bio Energy from the Neo Energy Group. The transaction was announced on 7 October 2025. Both the company and BGK call it the first of its kind in the Polish biogas and biomethane sector: it is a syndicated financing in which several banks share the risk.

Details of the transaction

The first stage is almost PLN 74 million earmarked for the purchase and development of agricultural biogas plants in the Lublin and Silesian voivodeships. The whole financing programme amounts to PLN 217 million and covers seven installations. The total capacity of the installations is to be 12 MW at the time of purchase, rising to 24 MW after the planned expansion. Neo Bio Energy currently has eight agricultural fermentation biogas plants; if the current support rules for biogas and biomethane remain unchanged, the company plans to increase this number to 23 by mid-2026.

BGK assesses that the transaction may set new standards and encourage similar ventures. The company's president stresses that the partnership with banks confirms the company's strategy and helps finance niche investments that are nevertheless important for the environment and energy security.

Why this matters

Access to debt financing is one of the main barriers in the sector. Commercial banks have for years approached biogas plants cautiously for several reasons: the risk of substrate supplies, dependence on support systems that have been subject to change, and difficult grid connections. A syndicate with the participation of a development bank, which can commit for longer and more broadly, reduces these concerns. BGK itself notes that the Polish biogas sector currently uses only a few percent of its potential; the forecasts mentioned in the material speak of 8–13 billion m³ a year.

The "buy and develop" model: acquiring operating biogas plants, expanding them and later converting them into biomethane plants is one of the fastest ways of increasing production, because it bypasses the long procedures of building from scratch.

Significance for the industry in Poland

The financing signals that banking is beginning to treat biogas as an asset class. For owners of small biogas plants this means a possibility of selling the installation, and for farmers – substrate suppliers – potentially new, longer agreements. For state institutions such as BGK it is an element of delivering energy targets. At the same time, market consolidation increases the importance of requirements concerning digestate quality, servicing and the availability of installations.

What to watch

When assessing such transactions it is worth checking the security structure, dependence on substrate agreements, and how the financing relates to the support system – the FIP premium, auctions and future contracts for difference for biomethane. The size of the financing does not in itself say anything about profitability, but about the banks' confidence in the segment.