Addax Bioenergy is one of three energy subsidiaries through which AOG Energy pursues a strategy of diversified investment. Since its foundation in 1987 it has been investing in energy, and has gone on to be regarded among the most agile, principled and adaptable firms in the sector. We take a look at its sugarcane-based renewable energy company, Addax Bioenergy, which started operations at a sustainable bioenergy project in Sierra Leone in 2014.
It was a small team of ambitious energy professionals which brought AOG Energy into being in 1987, seeing the potential in Africa and harnessing its own experience, skills and capabilities to embrace local business cultures without compromising its core principles of fairness and equality. Starting in oil trading before quickly diversifying into oil storage and distribution in Sub-Saharan Africa, its pioneering bioenergy initiative Addax Bioenergy was launched in 2008 in Sierra Leone, and has since become a model for sustainable development in a region where this key.
This project is taking place in Makeni, and will look to produce sustainable bio-ethanol from sugarcane, which will in turn be used in both the export and domestic markets. Also to be produced is so-called ‘green’electricity from a plant fuelled entirely by biomass, which will not only power the ethanol refinery but, crucially, also supply around 20 per cent of the national grid’s needs. The project area is situated approximately 15 kilometres west of the town of Makeni, in the Chiefdoms of Makari Gbanti and Bombali Shebora in the Bombali District and in the Chiefdom of Malal Mara in the Tonkolili District, in the Northern Province of Sierra Leone.
Sugarcane has long been renowned as the most efficient and, perhaps most importantly, sustainable crop for biofuel production, making Sierra Leone a logical and natural choice of location for a project of this scope. Offering the ideal land, a tropical climate and much opportunity for future development, it offers all the most desired conditions for this initiative. The sugarcane estate employed by the project stands at nearly10,000 hectares, with the crops planted in circular fields and watered by pivot irrigation. This method of planting sugar cane in smaller circular fields rather than in one big block, as is traditionally the case, means its impact on local livelihoods is greatly reduced and also allows much of the existing farmland and natural reserves to be preserved.
Covering a further 4,300 hectares are the project’s factory and related infrastructure, as well as fields developed specially for rice farming and ecological conservation areas, which gives a total project area of around 14,300 hectares. Addax’s considered approach, which has included much dialogue with local communities and detailed investigations, has seen many potential sources of conflict averted, namely the protecting of biodiversity and existing farmland as well as allowing the project to steer clear of populated areas and thus avoid physical resettlement. Its work to date has seen Addax recognised by Olivier De Schutter, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, who, “commend[s] Addax Bioenergy for its impact studies and dialogue with the communities. This is a pilot project; if it fails, nothing will work.”
The Makeni project, then, looks set to achieve a huge impact when fully operational in 2017, and will produce in the region of 85,000m3 of ethanol and around 100,000 MWh of renewable power each year. Up to 15 MW of power will then be supplied to the national grid in Sierra Leone, significantly bolstering the overall electric power capacity of the country. The project has also garnered praise from H.E. Ernest BaiKoroma, President of the Republic of Sierra Leone, who spoke in glowing terms of how its successes have been achieved to date. “This unique project is not the result of charity from the more developed countries or from our development partners; Addax has undertaken this venture because they believe that their investment will be safe in this country,”he said.
Illustrative of Addax’s commitment to the community in which it operates was the graduation in 2013 of a further 397 farmers under its Bioenergy Development Programme. This entails a 30-week training programme at one of the 50 Farmer Field and Life Schools the company has established as part of its Farmer Development Programme (FDP). The first FFLS participants graduated in February 2011, since joined by a further 1,838 farmers of whom more than half have been female. The Farmer Development programme, meanwhile, was launched in 2010 and is currently the largest food producing project in Sierra Leone, with Addax Bioenergy having mechanically prepared over 2,000 hectares of land as community fields for crop cultivation, removing food insecurity in the project area.
2013 was also the year in which the Makeni project became the first in Sierra Leone to be registered as a Clean Development Mechanism project of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The mechanism came into being in February 2005 with the aim of mitigating climate change, and this was an achievement noted by Simon Cleasby, CEO of Addax Bioenergy. ‘’This achievement underlines the pioneering nature of our project and our ambition to set a benchmark for sustainable bioenergy investment in Africa’’, he declared. “Electricity is essential for development and we are proud to provide a significant renewable supply in Sierra Leone.”
The production of the first sugarcane bioethanol and renewable electricity at the facility was announced in May last year, with Simon Cleasby remarking on this proud moment for Addax Bioenergy, as well as for the people of Bombali and Tonkolili Districts.“The project has taken six years of investment, commitment and cooperation on the part of many stakeholders to develop this pioneering project, which demonstrates the potential of Sierra Leone and its people,”he said. Already having brought significant local improvements, over 2,700 people are currently employed in some capacity by the project, while the production of power will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 56,000 tCO2 each year through replacingfossil fuel-intensive energy.Sierra Leone’s Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Joseph Sam Sesay, observed: “The success of Addax Bioenergy represents a major breakthrough in Sierra Leone’s efforts to become a hub for renewable (bio)energy alternatives. The project has already brought multiple benefits to thousands of people in and around Makeni and also to Sierra Leone as a whole. A truly virtuous circle of sustainable development is emerging in Sierra Leone.”