The Kenana Sugar Company itself was founded in 1975 with the President of Sudan Jaafar Nimeiri inaugurating the first factory in 1981. Located on the banks of the White Nile, southeast of Kosti city and 270 kilometres south of the Sudanese capital Khartoum, the company is indeed the world’s largest plantation producing white sugar.

The Kenana estate covers an area of 100,000 acres of irrigated land on extensive clay plains between the White and the Blue Nile. The rich alluvial soil there, with its abundance of surface water, is ideal for the cultivation of cane sugar.

Production was initially for domestic use only, but in 1992 the sugar company began exporting its sweet commodity. As the factory grew throughout the 90s, Kenana also started diversifying its production. It realised that it could capitalize on all aspects of the sugar cane, by not only producing sugar, but also exploring other angles of food and energy practices.

The upshot being that from the sugar cane, Kenana first produces sugar, and then from the sugar molasses they create ethanol; then, at the end of the chain, from the by-product of ethanol comes bio-compost, which is finally sold as a natural fertilizer or used to produce methane gas and potassium. 

Kenana has perfected its unique, diversified model by successfully integrating other value-added agro-industrial projects into its core sugar business, such as animal feed, bio-fuels, milk and dairy products, poultry, meat, wooden products from commercial forests, certified seeds and other engineering goods and services. Kenana began its first exports of ethanol in 2009, and now produces 65 million litres annually. Around 10% of the ethanol produced by Kenana is used domestically while the other 90% is exported, mainly to the European markets.

According to leadingedgeguides.com