Nigeria harnesses sugar cane potential for energy - NSDC

Nigeria harnesses sugar cane potential for energy - NSDC

Nigeria is to harness her sugar cane potential to source energy, as part of her initiatives for alternative energy.

The Executive Secretary of the National Sugar Development Council, Dr Latif Busari, says efforts are also being made to start the production of E-10, also called gasohol, which is a mixture of 10 per cent ethanol and 90 per cent gasoline.

“Such measures will boost the demand for sugarcane and encourage local production as the growers will be well off’’. He said

Local production and refining
He, however, said that the core mandate of the council was sugar development, adding that it was working toward repositioning Nigeria as a major player in the global sugar trade.

Dr. Busari said the council was adopting an integrated approach so that the sugar refineries would combine refining with local production instead of refining only imported sugar.

“Sugar refining is a capital intensive project, so we encourage them to backward integrate, whereby raw material is source locally. We are going to benchmark them so that conditions for importation will also require local production of sugar cane.’’ Dr. Busari explains.

Busari said sugar council was committed to making Nigeria a notable player in the global sugar trade through policies and strategies that would harness the natural and material resources.

The council was established in 1993 to accelerate the development of the local sugar industry to achieve a target of at least 70 per cent self-sufficiency by the Year 2020.

NAN/Adekusibe/Yinka