Going by the increasing demand from foods, drinks and pharmaceutical firms that use ethanol as raw material, Sona Group has declared intention to bridge the deficit through the production of 120,000 litres daily, approximately 43.8 million litres per annum at its plant in Ogun state.
The Sona ethanol plant which is located at Sango-Ota is expected to feed Nigeria as well as African market, including Ghana, Togo, Republic of Benin, Gabon, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Cameroun, and other countries, when completed in January, 2018.
Speaking during the tour of the factory held to conduct one of its financiers – First Bank PLC round the factory, Arjan Mirchandani, Chairman of Sona Group, said that its multi-billion dollar ethanol plant was designed to be the largest in Africa as it will produce 120,000 litres of ethanol daily.
Mirchandani noted that the plant would not only feed local and export markets in terms of ethanol sales that serves as raw material for foods, beverage and pharmaceutical companies, but would also employees thousands of farmers that produce sugarcane and cassava used as major raw materials for ethanol production.
He however, declared that assurances had been received already from firms that use ethanol for their production to start supplying when it is available, saying:“Some of major multinational companies in Nigeria have already shown interest in buying from us when production commences, they are impressed by our commitment to quality, and would rather patronize us instead of importing.”
Also, Ajai Musaddi, Group Managing Director of Sona Group, noted that one-thirds of the ethanol production would be reserved for internal consumption by its chain of fast moving consumable goods companies operating within the Sona Group family, while the two-thirds would be sold locally and exported to other African countries.
He said, “Apart from its investment in ethanol, Sona Group is also expanding its capacity across its subsidiaries. The group has made huge investments in human capacity development and, especially in modern technology as many of its operation are now fully automated.
“This has enabled the company to increase its production capacity significantly and it’s now a major player in the export market, which holds a big opportunity for growth
“For ethanol, the market is huge. We are looking into export. We can see the export is growing every day. We started with Ghana, now we export to Cameroun, Burkina Faso, Gabon, Senegal, Ivory Coast.
“Sona has equally made huge inroads into the biscuit market with huge investment in technology and human capital development. The company has been able to fill some of the supply gap created by the Forex crisis, which has made importation of premium biscuit from foreign markets unattractive.”
RAZAQ AYINLA, Abeokuta
