Brazilian company in Ghana biofuels joint venture: official

ACCRA: Constran SA, a Brazilian energy company, will build a plant to produce ethanol from sugar cane in central Ghana, Brazilian government officials said Monday.

"In Ghana we are developing a project that will result in growing 27,000 hectares (of sugar cane) for the production of 150 million litres of ethanol per year that are destined to the Swedish market," Brazilian President Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva told a UN trade conference here before heading back home.

Constran will partner with a Ghanaian company for the project, a member of the Brazilian delegation to the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) told AFP.

The official, who asked not to be named, said an agreement is already in place to sell the ethanol produced to a Swedish company.

No financial details were available. The joint venture will be Ghana's first biofuel production on an industrial scale.