Golden Sugar Company Signs US$143m Loan for State-of-art Sugar Refinery
Golden Sugar Company has signed a US$143.3m, five-year syndicated multi-currency medium term facility to finance the construction of a state-of-the-art sugar refinery complex in Lagos State, Nigeria.
The sugar refinery complex will comprise a 750,000 metric tons per annum (mtpa) sugar refinery plant, a 65,000 tonne-capacity storage facility and a 12MW gas fuelled power plant. The refinery plant will be built on a modular basis with an initial installed capacity of 750,000 mtpa with a view to doubling the installed capacity to 1.5 million mtpa over time.
Stanbic IBTC Bank and The Standard Bank of South Africa jointly acted as mandated lead arrangers to lead a syndicate comprising Standard Bank (Mauritius), First Bank of Nigeria, Zenith Bank, The Standard Bank of South Africa and Stanbic IBTC Bank to raise debt financing required by Golden Sugar Company. The debt raised also included a US$13.3m Commercial Agricultural Credit Scheme (CACS) facility to partly finance the development of the sugar farm and a Naira Commercial Bank standby facility to hedge against foreign exchange (FX) risk.
This project is in line with Nigeria’s target of achieving 70% self-sufficiency in locally producing raw sugar. The phasing and scale of the project has been designed as an import substitution initiative to fast track the development of local sugar production on a sustainable basis, while simultaneously meeting any shortfalls in local sugar supply by refining and adding value to imported raw sugar when necessary.
As this will be the largest single investment in sugar production in Nigeria to date, the project is expected to provide direct economic stimulation, employment, technology transfer, development of human resources and supporting industries, thereby helping to alleviate poverty in the project areas.