Angola is to start next month a US$750 million project to produce ethanol and sugar, Bloomberg News reported.
The project, on a 42,000-hectare plantation, is headed by Cia de Bioenergia de Angola Lda, known as Biocom, and has Brazilian construction company Odebrecht SA among its owners. The plantation is 320 kilometres east of the country’s capital Luanda.
There are plans to produce 36,000 metric tonnes of sugar this year starting in June, Managing Director Carlos Henrique Mathias told Bloomberg. The Biocom project is targeting 6,000 cubic metres of ethanol production in 2015, Mr Mathias added.
Angola is Africa’s second-largest crude oil producer. The country wants to diversify its economy away from oil, which accounts for about 95 percent of exports.
