Nigerian State Allocates Funds for Biofuels Development

Abuja, Nigeria | May 08, 2008 by D-8 Secretariat

In Nigeria, the government of Nasarawa State has allocated $27 million (€18 million) to improve ethanol processing and agricultural production. The state intends to construct an Agro Export Conditioning Centre at Keffi and establish a cassava ethanol processing plant at Doma, in conjunction with international investors.

Oloche Edache, FAO regional representative for Africa, said that Nigeria will require a 70-80% increase in food supplies to meet its food requirements by 2015. He added that the national emphasis on biofuels development, carried out as a part of Nigeria’s commitments under the Kyoto Treaty, would put upward pressure on agricultural prices for the next decade. Nigeria has allocated $876 million in agricultural development funding over the next four years.The Minister of Commerce and Industry announced in December that Nigeria is building five new sugar plants and has the potential to become a leading ethanol producer. New sugar plants are being built in Jigawa, Bauchi, Taraba, Kogi and Lagos states.

Nigeria produces 50,000 tonnes of sugar out of a total consumption of 1.176 million tonnes. The National Sugar Development Council (NSDC) has requested a presidential initiative to construct six regional facilities producing 100,000 tonnes of sugar, and 5 million gallons a year of sugar ethanol.

Biofuels is becoming one of the main topic mostly discussed by D-8. The organization will have a 4th meeting the D-8 Energy Work Group meeting in Cairo in the period from 1-2 June 2008. The meeting is to be held and hosted by the Ministry of Petroleum of Egypt.

Prior to that, D-8 Secretary General, Dipo Alam, has appealed to all D-8 memberstates as developing countries to study and scrutinize biofuels theme, while at the the same time keep on examining methods to overcome the challenge of sky-rocketing fuel and petroleoum prices. D-8 organisation urges the cooperation of all related parties to formulate solution to the current high fuel price problem.

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