Sugar company invests 78 million/- in distillery for industrial alcohol

President Jakaya Kikwete

BY STELLA JIMMY

Kilombero Sugar Company Limited (KSCL) has invested 78bn/- in distillery of Extra Neutral Alcohol (ENA) to be used as an ingredient to produce industrial alcohol.

Speaking to The Guardian in a phone interview at the weekend, KSCL Managing Director Mark Brainbridge said the new plant uses cane molasses which is a byproduct in cane extraction process.

“We have just commissioned the brand new 78bn/- distillery in Kilombero where fermented molasses is expected to produce 40,000 litres of ENA per day,” he said.

Brainbridge noted that this is the first time industrial alcohol is being produced locally and that it will be used in the production of cosmetics, adhesives, detergents and alcoholic beverages.

KSCL was privatised to Illovo Group of South Africa in the late 1990s, with the new investor pumping in 80bn/- in factory and estate rehabilitation that was completed in 1998.

Commenting on the rehabilitation, Brainbridge said, “We invested an additional 160bn/- in the refinery and expansion of both factories.”

Over the past two years, KSCL have invested 30bn/- in irrigation, drainage and further expansion of the factories in addition to the recently commissioned 78bn/- ethanol distillery.

Between 2004/2005 and 2012/2013, KSCL has paid over 136bn/- in taxes and 10bn/- in dividends to the government, which is one of the shareholders.

The sugar manufacture had a record production last year, with estate cane production reaching 725,000 metric tons. It has a record total sugar production in the 2012/2013 season as well, producing over 130, 000 metric tons.

“KSCL’s 2012/2013 average yield of 78 metric tons per ha was among the highest in the region and this year we will see further development on both indicators”, he asserted.
Total cane production, covering both the firm and independent out-growers reached 1.3 million metric tons during the 2012/2013 crop season, far higher than production level of less than 150,000 metric tons during the privatisation in 1998.

KSCL’s total area under cane is around 24,000 ha of which KSCL farms are nearly 10,000 ha, with 65 percent of the land under irrigation.

Official data shows that the sugarcane industry contributes about 280bn/- in foreign exchange savings per year, pays 100bn/- to government coffers and employs more than 18,000 people.
SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN