Sudan Kenana sugar plant plans 450,000 T output/yr

2 September 2003
In Economics

By Alfred Taban

KHARTOUM, Sept 2 (Reuters) – Sudan’s Kenana Sugar Company aims to increase production to 450,000 tonnes of white sugar a year soon from the current 400,000 tonnes, the company’s management said on Tuesday.

“Kenana is now producing 400,000 tonnes of sugar per year. we hope to increase annual production to 450,000 soon,” Ferid Medani, the secretary of Kenana’s board of directors, told Reuters. He did not give a timeframe for increasing output.

Some 150,000 tonnes of annual production are currently set aside for the local market. Exports go mainly to Arab and African countries, especially Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Kenya and Chad.

Medani said Kenana’s overall production cost was between $200 and $230 for a 50-kg (100 lb) bag of sugar.

The Kenana sugar cane plantation and production plant is located 250 km (160 miles) south of Khartoum and 1,200 km (750 miles) from Port Sudan, the country’s main sea outlet. Kenana says it is the world’s largest single integrated producer of white sugar.

Production began in March 1980, and by the 1984/85 season, Kenana was producing 306,000 tonnes a year — some 6,000 tonnes above the plant’s original capacity.

The factory says a combination of technical and financial problems caused production to slip from 310,000 tonnes in 1986/87 to 232,000 tonnes in 1989/90.

Kenana received government permission to export sugar in 1993, a move which helped the company generate foreign currency income and improve operational efficiency. Production shot up, reaching 333,000 tonnes in 1996/97 and 357,000 tonnes the following year.

Kenana is situated in an area of 168,000 feddans (70,000 hectares) but the cultivated area currently only covers 94,000 feddans. The factory has been producing between 25 and 45 tonnes of white sugar per feddan of sugar cane.

The company’s shareholders are: the government of Sudan with 35.17 percent, the government of Kuwait with 30.5 percent, Saudi Arabia with 10.92 percent, the Arab Investment Company with 6.96 percent, the state-owned Sudan Development Corporation with 5.66 percent, the Arab Authority for Agricultural Investment and Development with 5.56 percent, Sudanese banking groups with 4.45 percent, Lonrho with 0.46 percent, the Japanese Nissho Iwai corporation with 0.16 percent and Gulf Fisheries Company with 0.16 percent.