MIDROC ETHIOPIA TECHNOLOGY GROUP has announced an eight billion Birr expansion project for Elfora, an agro processing subsidiary, and MIDROC Gold, a mining exploration subsidiary.
The company, which has a five billion Birr annual turnover, divided the expansion project investment into two sections for implementation to begin in 2015 and continue for the next 15 to 20 years.
The first of the projects to be implemented is the gold mining project, which is to be carried out at the newly discovered gold potential area in Benishangul-Gumuz Region with an investment of 4.2 billion Br.
“The new site will be the biggest gold mine in Africa as the study indicated,” said Mohammed Ali Al-Amoudi (Sheikh), MIDROC Ethiopia’s shareholder and chairman, speaking about the Shakiso Project at an event held at the Sheraton Addis Hotel on Thursday, May 7, 2015 to announce the expansion.
The mining area, Metekel, according to Arega Yirdaw (PhD), MDROC Technology Group’s chief executive officer (CEO), has been explored for the past 10 years with findings indicating that the transfer to the production of gold is feasible. This place will be the third gold exploitation site for MIDROC Gold in addition to the existing two at Legedembi and Saro in Oromia Region.
The exploration of the area’s potential for gold production and its feasibility study conducted by a British company called Behre Dolbear Minerals Industry Advisors, at a cost of 310 million Br.
From this potential area of gold production, MIDROC Gold plans to extract 34tn of gold in 15 years, expecting 27 billion Br in revenues. The project could create jobs for 650 employees.
The second expansion project is at the Elfora Agro-industry Plc, with three major development activities within three to five years.
The first of these is modern integrated poultry, which is based on a feasibility study done by US-based Xsyn Corporation and experience sharing with major companies in the poultry sector.
The company has been producing 30 million eggs and 500tn of meat, exporting 20pc of its products to the Djiboutian Market, according to the Company.
This project expansion, planned with an investment of 870 million Br, is expected to raise production to 65 million eggs and six million kilograms of chicken meat per year. In 15 years, the company aims to have sales of 12.4 billion Br and create 600 jobs.
The second agro-industry expansion project is the production of Alfalfa animal feed, also called forage.
The company has determined that the production of forage can give a yield of 25tn per hectare with 22pc of protein content. It will invest 1.6 billion Br for the cultivation of Alfalfa on 300ha of land in Nettle and Shallo, both in Oromia Region with a plan to produce 600tn of forage a month.
With this capacity of production, 1.5 million tonnes of forage is expected to be supplied to the market with planned revenue of 10 billion Br in 20 years. This specific project is expected to create 500 additional jobs.
The third and the final expansion project in Elfora’s production is dairy and meat production, which by itself is to be implemented in three phases.
In the first phase, the company has bought 500 Borena heifers, which are now kept at Wonji Kuriftu, near Adama. The second requires the importation of 3,000 heifers and the third being the implementation of modern milk production and processing with 10,000 cows.
For this dairy and meat project, a total investment of 1.1 billion Br is budgeted with a plan to produce 60 million litres of milk a year with total sales of 12 billion Br expected over 20 years.
“We will also be engaged in mining in Tigray for the exploitation of zinc, lead and silver,” said Al-Amoudi. “We are also planning the production of 250,000tn of soda ash.”
MIDROC Ethiopia Technology Group, which has 21 subsidiary companies under it, mainly works on mining, agro processing, transportation, construction, real estate, education and trade with, with 6,000 employees.
Many foreign companies are coming to us to lend us money and work together; we are also planning to work with local farmers for mutual benefit,” said Al-Amoudi.
Al-Amoudi, in a speech he used to lambast the local media for not reporting the performance of his companies, said that he would open companies in every Woreda of the country, if people did not consider his efforts as attempt to take all the land in the country.
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