Sudan-Niger to cooperate in oil & sugar sectors

December 24, 2015 (KHARTOUM) – Sudan and Niger will sign a memo of understanding in the oil industry early next year, as the West African nation expressed its desire to benefit from Sudan’s experience in sugar production

Receiving Niger’s foreign minister Aïchatou Kané Boulama, Thursday, Sudan’s oil minister Mohamed Zayid Awad welcomed Niger’s desire to cooperate with Sudan in the oil sector and to promote its relations with his country.

The two sides said they have agreed to sign a memo of understanding on these issues in early 2016.

Awad explained his country’s experiment in oil industry and promised to share that experiment with the Niger.

Boulama extended an invitation to Awad to visit the Niger, indicating her country’s desire to benefit from Sudan’s experiment in all the technical aspects of the oil industry: production, refining and transportation.

She thanked the Sudanese oil ministry for training Niger’s oil cadres at the country’s oil training centre in Khartoum, also appreciating the contributions of the Sudanese oil pipelines company and the private Abbarsi Gas company to her country’s energy sector.

In a encounter with Sudan’s Minister of the Industry Mohamed Youssef, Boulama communicated her country’s desire to benefit from Sudan’s experiment in sugar industry.

During the meeting, which was also attended by Abdul Seed Taha, CEO of the multinational Kenana Sugar Company, Minister Youssef dwelt on the horizons of sugar production in Sudan that now produces 1.2 million ton from six major sugar plants.

He said Sudan is expected to add four new sugar plants during the coming five years.

The sugar sector , in addition to sugar, also produces fodder , molasses , ethanol and other by-products, he said.

Kenana CEO expressed his company’s readiness to conduct feasibility studies for sugar industry in the Niger and invited the visiting minister to visit their factory.

He said Kenana produces an annual 400,000 tons of sugar, 65 million liters of ethanol and also produces quantities of fodder and milk he did not specify.

He said Kenana exports 150,000 tons of sugar to Europe and that 90 percent of the plant’s ethanol output is also exported to Europe.

(ST)