Canal Sugar, owned by UAE's Al Khaleej Sugar Refinery, is planning to build a pier and grains terminal in the Egyptian port city of Damietta with $200 million in investments, its chief executive said on Tuesday. The new terminal will have a discharge capacity of 3,000 tonnes of grains per hour, Islam Salem told a news conference. The company is expecting to finalise a contract with the government for the pier and terminal by the end of this year, Salem said in response to a Reuters question. The project will be partially self-financed, while the remaining funds will come from infrastructure financial institutions, he said. He declined to give the facility's storage capacity. The Dubai-based Al Khaleej Sugar Refinery is the world's largest port-based sugar refinery. Canal Sugar, an Egyptian joint stock company, aims to establish the world's largest beet sugar plant in western Minya, Egypt, producing 900,000 tonnes a year, at an estimated cost of $1 billion. In March, Canal Sugar signed a $169 million financing agreement to purchase, construct, and operate the west Minya project until a $700 million long-term loan is finalised. The west Minya project also aims to reclaim about 187,850 acres of desert to produce 2 million tonnes of beet sugar annually, as well as other strategic crops like wheat and corn. Source: Reuters
