BioEnergy Africa gets £8m: Howzat?

Smaller companies
Peter Stiff

Biofuels groups have had their critics, but there was good news for the City’s newest green energy group yesterday as it was ushered on to London’s junior market. BioEnergy Africa, formed to develop ethanol from sugar cane projects in southern Africa, rose 2p to 14½p after listing on AIM. The company, chaired by that serial African investor Phil Edmonds, raised £8.6 million through a placing of about 20.7 per cent of its shares.
BioEnergy will use the money to develop its first project, a 30,000-hectare ethanol project in Mozambique, and to pursue similar ventures. The Massingir Fuel Ethanol project is targeting an initial production of 600,000 litres of ethanol a day, rising to 1,200,000 litres a day at full production.
Mr Edmonds, the former England cricketer, is already chairman of Central African Mining & Exploration Company (Camec) and White Nile.