Sugar Corporation plans the construction of a new bioethanol plant in Ethiopia

Ethiopian Sugar Corporation and Eugen Schmitt Company signed a joint investment agreement to set up an ethanol plant on May 25, 2017. The press release was published some time ago but it was only recently that the story was aired by media. I have considered that it could be interesting to bring it to the Blog in order to know more about the reality of the sector in Africa.

A company called “Wonji Ethanol Technology Share Company” was established based on the agreement with a working capital of more than 46 M€ both in cash and in kind. According to the press release, Eugen Schmitt Company is a veteran German firm with vast experience in ethanol sector but I could not find any reliable information about it. Oher three shareholders would have reached an agreement to work within the partnership, their names are not known. Eugen Schmitt and the Sugar Corporation own 83% and 14% of the shares respectively while the rest three shareholders have 1% each one of them.

Factsheet of the project:

Location	Sugar mill of Ethiopian Sugar Corporation in Wonji Shoa (110 km from Addis Ababa, in Oromia Regional State, Ethiopia).
Feedstock	Molasses from the sugar factory.
Product and production capacity	60,000 liters of ethanol per day (12.8 Ml/year).
Cost	51 M$.

Figure 1. Sugar mill of Ethiopian Sugar Corporation in Wonji Shoa where the new ethanol plant will be built (extracted from Sugar Corporation web page)

The Wonji Shoa facilities will become the third sugar mill in the country producing ethanol from molasses. Finchaa (20 Ml/year) and Metehara (12.5 Ml/year) factories are the other two.