AGZAM invests $250m in bioethanol

South Africa's AGZAM Project Developers has made one of the largest investments into a sector outside of the mining industry, in Zambia.

The company is planning to build a $251 million (€175.65 million) sugar and ethanol facility after it signed a deal with the nation at the end of March 2011.

Work on the biofuel plant is slated to begin in May this year before operations start in 2013.

'The company will produce 200,000 tonnes of sugar and 28 million litres of bioethanol a year,' says Muhabi Lungu, a director at the Zambia Development Agency. 'Production is expected to start by 2013 and we expect that the project will create around 4,000 jobs.'