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Dangote Sugar Refinery Plc has announced a move to invest $1 billion in its sugar expansion in Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy and its primary market, Bloomberg reported.
Dangote Sugar Refinery is a subsidiary of Dangote Industries Limited, a Nigeria-based multinational conglomerate with a diversified and fully integrated industrial portfolio. It was founded by Africa’s most prosperous man, Aliko Dangote. It is the largest conglomerate on the African continent.
The announcement follows a move by the Central Bank of Nigeria to conserve foreign exchange, naming the company one of the sole three sugar importers in the country.
Dangote Sugar Refinery has therefore put more than 100,000 hectares of land under cultivation to grow sugarcane for local distribution.
Dangote Sugar Refinery CEO Ravindra Singhvi revealed this in an investor call in Lagos. According to the CEO, its plantations in Adamawa and Nasarawa in North Nigeria will be ready by 2023.
As of June, the company’s sugar refinery in Adamawa recorded an annual output of 403,846 metric tonnes. It plans to raise its capacity to between 1.5 million and 2 million tonnes of refined sugar annually by 2024.
Meanwhile, Dangote Sugar Refinery is working to double the capacity of its Adamawa facility to 6,000 metric tonnes of cane-crushing per day, further increasing its local sourcing of raw materials while reducing its spending of hard currency.
This will facilitate the company’s move toward the government’s backward integration plan, a core reason why Nigeria decided to name it a sugar importer.
Nigeria’s other exclusive importers include billionaire Abdul Samad Rabiu’s BUA Sugar Refinery and John Coumantaros’ Flour Mill Nigeria.
Dangote Sugar Refinery
The Dangote Sugar Refinery has a 1.44-million-metric-tonne refining capacity. It is Nigeria’s largest sugar producer.
On Aug. 2, the company posted N12.60 billion ($30.6 million) as its mid-year profits for 2021 following a double-digit increase in its revenue, representing a nine-percent growth compared to its profits after tax of N11.58 billion ($28.14 billion) in 2020.
