Four executives of the Kenana Sugar Company, Sudan's leading sugar firm, are arriving in Brazil today, August 3. The group is coming to the country to become more closely acquainted with the Brazilian expertise in the field of alcohol fuel.
They are interested, according to the Market Development manager at the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce, Rodrigo Solano, in getting to know more about the mixing of ethanol into gasoline, market formation for a new product such as alcohol, transportation, handling and storage, as well as the Brazilian laws for the field, and the production of flex-fuel vehicles (which run both on alcohol and gasoline).
The trip to Brazil started being organized during a visit paid by Solano and the Market Development analyst at the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce, Jean Gonçalves da Silva, to the company's premises in Sudan, in February this year.
The Kenana delegation is comprised of the Product Development manager, Sara Elkarib, the executive Hind Badr, the Refinery Administration manager, Abdelmunim Gaafar, and the Project Development executive, Abdelwahab Abuelrish.
The executives will visit organizations linked to the alcohol and sugar sector and technology centers in the field, as well as companies that manufacture products for the segment. According to initial forecasts, they should remain in the country until the second half of the month.
"Any visit of foreigners to Brazil to get acquainted with centers of excellence in the alcohol and sugar field is interesting, because the country may sell machinery for the sector," says the secretary-general at the Arab Brazilian Chamber, Michel Alaby.
The secretary-general states that it might be advantageous for Brazil to produce alcohol and sugar in partnership with Sudan.
"Brazil is hindered by barriers in the field, imposed by the European Union and the United States. The establishment of production platforms in other countries, like Sudan, might be a way around those barriers," says Alaby.
Kenana has already manifested its intention of establishing partnerships with Brazilian companies in the ethanol field.
This will not be the first visit paid by Kenana representatives to Brazil. They have already been in the country on other occasions, seeking exchange and business opportunities in the field of ethanol and sugar. The company produces 450,000 tons of sugar per year, and should also start to produce ethanol in the coming years.
Kenana wants to double its sugar production within three years. The company is expanding its capacity by building new industrial plants. Sugar produced by the company is made using raw sugar bought from other regions, such as Brazil, and sugar cane planted in Sudan itself.
The company imports 60,000 tons per year of raw sugar from Brazil for processing. Some of Kenana's sugar cane harvesting machinery was purchased from Brazil. Furthermore, a variety of cane used by the Sudanese company is originally from São Paulo.
The sugar produced by the company is consumed in the domestic market and exported to countries in Europe and the Gulf region. Kenana is headquartered in the city of Rabak, 300 kilometers south of the country capital, Khartoum. It is a mixed capital company (private and state-owned). The majority shareholder is the Sudanese government.
Anba
