São Paulo – The Sudanese Kenana Sugar Company is going to inaugurate its first ethanol mill in Africa at the end of March. The factory was built by the Brazilian Dedini, a producer of machinery and equipment for the sugar and alcohol industry that is headquartered in the interior of the state of São Paulo. This information was disclosed to ANBA by the ambassador of Sudan to Brazilian capital Brasília, Omer Salih Abubakr, during a visit of the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce.
According to the diplomat, the mill was built within the Kenana complex, which is 250 kilometres south of Khartoum, on the bank of the White Nile, and should have a capacity for production of 61 million litres of alcohol per year from molasses made in the country. "We already supply bulk molasses, but now we want to add value to the product," he said.
He pointed out that the company has a contract with the government of the United Kingdom to supply 5 million litres of the product per year, but that there is interest in Japan and other countries, although a large share of the ethanol should be used for domestic consumption. Abubakr stated that Sudan wants to provide incentives to the use of biofuels and to make available more of the oil the country produces for export.
The country, according to him, plans to produce ethanol-fuelled vehicles and wants to have access to Brazilian technology in the area through joint ventures, but the country may also import vehicles produced in Brazil. "We want to be a ‘green’ country," he said. The tendency for the future is to have more mills. At the International Conference on Biofuels, promoted in São Paulo last year, Sudan had one of the largest delegations.
The ambassador pointed out that his country is the largest producer of sugarcane in Africa, with a crop of 1.2 million tonnes per crop, and there is still much area available for exploration. The Kenana project, which is state-owned, started being developed in 1980 and produces sugar that is exported to the Arab countries and Africa. Irrigation of plantations is guaranteed by channels that transport water from the White Nile and bagasse is used for generation of electricity.
Up to now, according to him, around US$ 800 million has already been invested in Kenana. Apart from the Sudanese government, the company has as partners the governments of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Japan. Apart from plantations and mills, the project, according to the ambassador, includes the local community of 1 million people and offers housing, schooling and hotel rooms to visitors.
Abubakr visited the Arab Brazilian Chamber in São Paulo on Friday (6) to invite the organisation’s president, Salim Taufic Schahin, and the secretary general, Michel Alaby, to participate in the inauguration. The government of Sudan also wants the presence of Brazilian government representatives.
In early March, the minister of Agriculture of Sudan, Al-Zubair Taha, should be in Brazil to sign an agreement for technical cooperation with his Brazilian colleague, Reinhold Stephanes. The African minister is interested in expanding exchange with Brazil to other areas of agribusiness, as there is a project for restructuring of the sector with an estimated budget of US$ 4 billion. "We need Brazilian know-how," he said. There are funds, as countries from the Gulf, like Saudi Arabia, have been investing in agricultural production in Sudan aimed at supplying their own market.
Abubakr also wants to make use of the inauguration event to sign cooperation agreements between the Arab Brazilian Chamber and the federation of Sudanese businessmen and to establish the Brazil-Sudan Business Council.
*Translated by Mark Ament
