By Beatific Gumbwanda
CHIREDZI- Tongaat Hulett Zimbabwe (THZ), a leading sugar and ethanol producer, is calling for an increase in ethanol prices due to escalating production costs.
The company’s concerns which were shared with the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Energy during its visit to the Lowveld recently, come as the government maintains a stagnant ethanol price, sparking fears of reduced production and profitability
The committee was in Triangle to appreciate THZ and GreenFuel which are the sole companies producing ethanol which is used for fuel blending.
Addressing the committee at Triangle Country Club, THZ Managing Director Tendai Masawi said there was need to adjust the pricing of ethanol to meet the cost of production.
“The cost of production is going up almost on a daily basis and we know what has been happening to the two currencies that we are using at the moment. Our concern, which I really would plead, is that for four years we have not had a price adjustment for ethanol and it is clearly affecting our operations.
“We have salaries going up, spares, inputs in terms of energy going up ,sometimes we run with generators and we are still expected to supply the product which has been saving the country a substantial amount of foreign currency,” said Masawi.
Masawi said the company was producing 40 million liters of ethanol every year using infrastructure that was commissioned in 1980.
“We have an ethanol plant which has a nameplate capacity of 40 million liters running in close to 48 weeks in a year. The Ethanol plant was commissioned in 1980 and it is still operational and in very sound condition,” said Masawi.
The committee Chairperson, Vincent Sihlabo highlighted the need to enhance ethanol production industry which he said was saving the country’s foreign currency through fuel blending.
“We are doing an enquiry on the portfolio we are running so we wanted to appreciate these two companies which are producing ethanol which we are using for blending in our fuel.
This is important because we know that we have issues with foreign currency so this step which was taken by government that we sell blended fuel helps us to save,” said Sihlabo.
