Viewpoint: Operating circumstances are challenging but not insurmountable
Nikolai Germann Managing DirectorAddax Bioenergy
Addax Bioenergy has embarked on what we hope will be a remarkable project to introduce a large-scale "sugar cane to ethanol" plant in Sierra Leone to service the European Union market. Addax Bioenergy is a private company that descended from the fuel company Addax, which operates in five African countries and which was sold quite recently to the Chinese fuel company Sinopec.
People are amazed that we have chosen to locate our plant in Sierra Leone, which underwent a long and gruesome civil war in the 1990s. But the political situation is much better now and current president Ernest Bai Koroma came from the party that was previously in opposition.
He is a former insurance manager and strongly supportive of investment. He is particularly keen on diversifying the economy away from mining, even though there are some big mining projects under way, since this concentration on mining is now considered to be one of the causes of war.