i stand to be corrected coz i dont have the info first hand and anything i say may need verification. first lof all personally i think that they will do good with the TARDA (production of their own cane) which will increase reliability of deliveries of cane since its them producing and also reduce reliance on rain for cane (that's the case by farmers currently) and volumes due to short maturity period of the cane. plus the power production will help in two ways reduce power cost and increase revenue from the excess they sell. plus i think many times av heard of shortage of sugar so high prices. now anyone with figures can tell us if the mkwanja saved and/or generated from these sources are enough to stave off competition.

It is a complicated one... but the government owned sugar firms will die before Mumias is affected...

There is COMESA, power, ethanol... all these combined make it tough to figure out the future BUT it looks better than last year... The price is also higher then last year...

@ephy - Dangote has 'benefits' not available to Mumias...

@vvs... what benefits are those that Dangote has that mumias doesn't plus how long is the loan to mumias to build the cogen plant likely to take to be repaid?

Aliko Dangote has been connected to the very top officials of Nigeria's Administration for a long time. He is a personal friend of Obasanjo.
We all know how corrupt Nigeria is.
Note that I'm not saying that the Dangote Group acquired their money through questionable means, but they might be gaining some undue advantage from Aliko's connections.
Maybe these are the "benefits" VVS was talking about.

By the way, why would sugar imported from other COMESA countries be cheaper? Mumias can't complain about electricity cost like all other industries. So is it because of the cost of cane from farmers or is it inferior technology?

@Ephy MSC is a very good long term buy long term for a number of reasons..

1. they have $300million or 25billion shillings set aside for acquisitions around east africa

2. they are planning to diversify their income into bottled water and ethanol production..

3. they are planning to increase their extremely high margin co generation (around 80%) from 38MW to 50MW by next year...

4. they have a major aim of increasing their sugar production and reducing costs...

5. from an economic point of view as the population shoots up around EA demand for sugar follows suit..

the major reason people view this share as expensive is because it was at 3bob last year.. but i have this to say... this stock can easily rally to 20bob this year if all goes to plan...

ja thats the thing a 40% growth in profits for 2010...probably a 0.50 dividend...@ the current prices MSC is fully priced...probably a 10% rally on the announcement of the results...if MSC is to reach 20 bob maybe Jan 2011 depending on 1H results...anyways Prof how far is the TARDA project coz Comesa is 2012....

i expect a 0.6 dividend not 0.5 and 40% growth will give a P/E of around 8... i'm in this stock for the long term but i do expect more than a 10% rally after results

A widely held stock so the ups & downs are limited due to buying + selling competition... Unfortunately, the route of sugar passes thru RV which is a prime area for Referendoom violence... See PEV 2008...