By Chinenye Anuforo

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Dangote Sugar Refinery has said it would invest N106 billion in the next six years in achieving its Backward Integration Programme (BIP) of making Nigeria sugar self sufficiency.
Speaking at the company facts behind the figure in Lagos revently the  acting Group Managing Director of Dangote Sugar, Engr. Abdullahi Sule said Dangote Sugar will commence its phase two Sugar Master Plan by investing N106 billion to achieving it.
According to him, the company will be acquiring five large sugar factories, 108,000 Ha of land under cultivation, 1.08 million MT/PA of refined sugar from locally grown sugar can per annual.
He also said that 130 million litres of. Ethanol potential across all sites, animal feed and surplus power generation capacity to be sourced from cane fiber would generate over 75, 000 jobs to be achieved under its six years second phase master plan.
He noted that how the project will be financed is yet to determined by the management, saying the company remains zero debt and has the capacity to borrow.
He however said that 20 per cent of the project will be financed through equities.
He pointed out that “Since the past 10 years, when the company was quoted, it has consistently paid dividend.
“The year 2016 was a challenging year, yet we declared fantastic result that was better than 2015 performance, as if that is not enough we have just published our first quarter result which is far better than the previous year.”
He stated that Dangote Sugar has continued to maintained at least 70 per cent market share and is also getting ready to produce over 70 per cent of what Nigerians will use through backward integration.
For its first quarter result ended March 31, 2017, revenue up by 83 per cent to N59.5 billion from N32.6 billion in 2016 and 71 per cent of first quarter budget achieved.
Cost of sales went up 100 per cent, due to increase in gas cost while gross profit increased 16 per cent to N7.84 billion as against N6.77 billion. Profit before tax increased 28 per cent to N7.04 billion, while profit after tax went up to N4.76 billion from N3.34 billion in 2016.