By Agency Reporter   Thursday, 27 Jan 2011

Golden Sugar Company Limited on Wednesday signed a $143.3m, five-year syndicated multi-currency medium-term facility to finance the construction of a sugar refinery complex in Lagos State.

According to a statement by the company on Wednesday, the sugar refinery complex will comprise a 750,000 plant, a 65,000-tonne-capacity storage facility and a 12-megawatt gas fueled power plant.

The statement said the refinery plant would be built on a modular basis with an initial installed capacity of 750,000 mtpa with a view to doubling the capacity to 1.5 million mtpa over time.

Stanbic IBTC Bank Plc and Standard Bank of South Africa Limited jointly acted as the Mandated Lead Arrangers. They are to lead a syndicate comprising Standard Bank (Mauritius) Limited, First Bank of Nigeria Plc, Zenith Bank Plc, Standard Bank of South Africa and Stanbic IBTC Bank Plc to raise debt financing required by the company.

The statement said the debt raised also included a $13.3m Commercial Agricultural Credit Scheme Facility to partly finance the development of the sugar farm and a naira Commercial Bank Standby Facility to hedge against foreign exchange risk.

Golden Sugar Company is a wholly owned subsidiary of Flour Mills of Nigeria Plc, one of Nigeria’s largest industrial conglomerates, and was established for the purpose of developing an integrated sugar project.

According to the statement, this, is addition to the construction and development of the sugar refinery complex in Lagos, It will also involve over the next seven to 10 years, backward integration through growing and cultivation of sugarcane, and investment in milling and processing of sugarcane into raw sugar, which will ultimately be refined by the refinery.

 

Source: Punch