Here I am specifically not talking of Jatropha oil, which has been talked to death, but a tried and tested biofuel from cane sugar, namely, ethanol.

Brazil has been at it for years and they have just about perfected the technology. With oil heading up again and all kinds of rumblings about Iran, there is no telling where the price of oil will finally settle.

A while back there was talk that akina Mumias were thinking of diversifying away from sugar. Kenyan sugar at the moment is not price-competitive. This has led to calls from players in that field for protection from COMESA imports.

I have thought for a long while that if Mumias (or any one of our cane processors) ever came up with a coherent bioethanol strategy, I would drop whatever I was doing and rush to buy that company's stock.

Diversifying away from cane sugar to the higher value added ethanol would not only yield a boost to that company's bottom line, but, done correctly, would affect Kenya's balance of payments significantly. After all, the single largest item on Kenya's import bill is oil (I think).

For those of us living abroad, the benefits would be 2-fold: 1) A stronger Kenyan economy giving all stocks and investments a lift, and 2) The improving balance of trade strengthening the shilling vs other currencies and in doing so amplifying the effect of 1).

I would appreciate hearing about any information or even rumors about Kenya's efforts in that direction.

@Chaka,

An ethanol/petrol blend of 10/90 is pretty common in some countries. Definitely viable and is the way to go if we want to strengthen our terms of trade.

Some cars in Brazil can run on almost 100% ethanol. And think of all the support industries that would follow. I have always found it puzzling that up to this point, it has been mostly talk.

@SiriKali1
The seven sisters practically have this market's gonads in a vice - market entry is not for the faint-hearted.
You'd need to radically revise the whole sugar value chain - that means liaising with farmers, change resistant civil servants, ravenous politicians and lackadaisical sugar players.

In short, I don't envy you.