(Ecofin Agency) - Pape Dieng (photo), Sonacos’ managing director, announced that the company plans to move towards peanut oil refining and sales targeting Senegal’s domestic market, APS indicated.

The official explained the decision to focus on domestic market, rather than exporting crude peanut seeds and oil, as usual, by the fact that global prices of the oleaginous are slumping. With the new move, the State-owned firm should record a profit of CFA12 billion within two years.

“Revenues generated over the period, will be sufficient to finance, rehabilitate and modernize our industrial production facility,” said Dieng.

Let it be recalled that Sonacos has a crushing capacity of 350,000 tons of peanuts. Like all other local processors, it often faces a shortage of raw material as producers prefer selling to foreign buyers who offer better prices.

Espoir Olodo