VenturesNow

Nigeria’s ARN Foods partners Canada’s AGI Miltec for rice milling plants

Published

3 months ago

September 7, 2024

One of Nigeria’s commodities trading organisations, A.R.N Foods, is making the move into rice milling and production. To process high-quality rice and increase food security in Nigeria, AGI Miltec, a global provider of grain processing solutions, has teamed up with A.R.N Foods.

Adelota Nola, the founder and CEO of ARN Foods, stated during the contract signing ceremony in Lagos on Friday, that his firm will use AGI Milltec’s cutting-edge solutions to process high-quality rice for the Nigerian market as part of their partnership.

Stressing that the collaboration is a team of experts to drive food sustainability and maximize the agricultural value chain which has remained under-explored in Africa. According to Nola, A.R.N. is taking the lead in finding a solution to the shortage of rice which has proven to be the world’s largest staple in demand.

Also in attendance was the Executive Director at Providus Bank, Mr Adeoye, the Chief Executive Officer of Parallex Bank- Olufemi Bakare, Executives from Lotus Bank, Media mogul Chief Dele Momodu and other top executives, partners and stakeholders.

“The deficit is very large. We can only start from somewhere. If we sleep and say the problems are so much and there is nothing we can do about it, then we will all just continue to sleep. But if we say we can do a little by taking the first step to solving the problem like we are doing today, then someone from somewhere can emulate what we are doing.

“If 100 people try to solve the problem, one day the problem will be solved. We have taken the first step to solving the rice deficit problem in Nigeria,” he said.

Vincent Joseph, the Business Development Manager for AGI in Nigeria, discussed the company’s history and experience that made it suitable for ARN’s ambitious goals. The company has over thirty years of experience operating throughout continents and Africa, and it has constructed over ten mill plants in Nigeria.

“The rice quality we see today is due to two reasons. One is the quality of paddy itself and the second comes from the way it is processed. There are still people over here that are using traditional methodology for processing and the quality of that will not be so good.

“We have 25 years’ experience in the rice milling sector. In Nigeria, we are not new. We know the quality of paddy and the requirements. We would like to bring the same quality to Nigeria. This one has been specifically designed for the Nigerian market and we already know the benchmark that Nola is looking for,” he said.

According to Joseph, the collaboration between the two companies would be smooth because A.R.N. Foods already has backward integration and is processing its rice paddies as the next natural step. He emphasised the solid engineering and financial foundation of AGI Milltec.

He also emphasized that the construction of the mill will be according to the acceptable standards from its parent country – Canada, thus issues around managing emissions from the mill plant will not arise.

Currently, Nigeria produces more rice than any other country in West Africa. The nation consumes more rice than any other country in the region in absolute terms because of its massive population. The average national production of milled rice is 3.3 million tonnes, compared to an anticipated 5.2 million tonnes of yearly consumption. But post-harvest loss remains one of the biggest challenges in the rice farming space, with private investment like ARN geared towards the space, it is yet to be seen if local rice production can become sufficient, and become export goods in the global highly competitive market.

Related Topics:ARN Canada Featured Nigeria Rice

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Kenya seeks $750m from World Bank, obtains $200m from AfDB— Official

Published

1 day ago

November 20, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

The head of debt management for the finance ministry told Reuters that Kenya had obtained a $200 million loan from the African Development Bank (AfDB) and was negotiating a fresh $750 million loan with the World Bank.

After being forced to abandon proposed tax rises costing more than 346 billion shillings ($2.68 billion) in June due to fatal demonstrations, the East African nation’s administration, which has been grappling with significant debt, has been frantically seeking fresh funding.

The Finance Ministry’s public debt management office director general, Raphael Owino, told Reuters that the IMF’s October clearance of the seventh and eighth reviews, which opened the door for a $606 million loan tranche, had aided the ministry’s talks for more loans.

“The World Bank is coming on board, riding on the back of IMF receipts,” Owino said. “The AfDB is already on board.”

The discussions for more assistance, which came under the World Bank’s “Development Policy Operations” (DPO) with the government, were confirmed by a representative at the organization’s Kenya office.

“The amount of the current (loan) is yet to be determined. The amount will also depend on the implementation of the policy reforms agreed upon,” the spokesperson told Reuters, adding that past DPO loans averaged about $750 million.

In May, the World Bank approved the latest round of DPO loans, totalling $1.2 billion.

According to a statement made last month by Finance Minister John Mbadi, Kenya has set a foreign borrowing goal of 168 billion shillings for the fiscal year ending in June 2025.

VenturesNow

Dangote refinery begins petroleum sales to West Africa

Published

2 days ago

November 20, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

In an indication to traders that the activities of its mega-refinery might soon disrupt regional fuel markets, Nigeria’s private Dangote Petroleum Refinery has started exporting refined petroleum products to neighbouring West African nations.

According to a Bloomberg story on Tuesday, a tanker had transported a consignment of petrol from the Dangote Petroleum Refinery to seas off the coast of Togo, a nearby West African nation. The article cited data from Vortexa, Kpler, Precise Intelligence, a port report, and a ship-tracking tool.

According to the source, a CL Jane Austen recently departed west after loading over 300,000 barrels from Dangote.

Recall that Mustapha Abdul-Hamid, the chairman of the Ghana National Petroleum Authority, stated last month that the nation is thinking of purchasing petroleum products from the Dangote refinery in order to reduce the approximately $400 million it spends each month on more costly exports from Europe.

Speaking at the OTL Africa Downstream Oil Conference in Lagos, the chairman of NPA, Ghana, said that by eliminating freight expenses, buying from Nigeria instead of Europe will lower the cost of other products and services.

“If the refinery reaches 650,000bpd a day capacity, all that volume cannot be consumed by Nigeria alone, so instead of us importing as we do right now from Rotterdam, it will be much easier for us to import from Nigeria and I believe that will bring down our prices,” Hamid said.

Two weeks ago, it was announced that the refinery would start exporting fuel to Namibia, Angola, and South Africa. Four more African nations—Niger Republic, Chad, Burkina Faso, and Central Africa Republic—had also begun talks with the refinery, it was said.

According to a very reliable source who spoke directly to one of our reporters, the management of the refinery with a capacity of 650,000 barrels per day was in the advanced stages of negotiations with the nations to begin lifting petroleum.

“I can confirm to you that talks are actually at the advanced stage with Ghana, Angola, Namibia, and South Africa, while the initial discussion is coming up with Niger, Chad, Burkina Faso, and the Central African Republic,” the source said.

The petroleum product shipment is currently floating off the coast of Lome, which is a well-liked location for ship-to-ship transfers, according to the source.

Furthermore, the final destination of the cargo of the CL Jane Austen is uncertain.

Despite being off Togo, the region is frequently utilised for ship-to-ship transfers, thus the gasoline may eventually be transported elsewhere.

“While the shipment is tiny in the context of the global gasoline market, it signals the ramp-up of Dangote’s production and the potential to export significant volumes of gasoline beyond Nigeria, which could upend regional markets.”

Last month, the refinery sent its first shipment of petrol by sea to Lagos, a neighbouring commercial centre.

Under the regulatory statute, the Federal Government last month terminated the state-owned oil company’s monopoly on purchasing gasoline from the plant for domestic use, but it has permitted the ongoing importation of fuel from the US and Europe.