The visiting son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi is exploring the possibility of setting up a petroleum products plant in Zimbabwe to ease the country’s vulnerability to shortages experienced during the past few years, media sources report here Tuesday.
The privately-owned online agency Zimbabwe Reporter said Al-Saadi al-Gaddafi was negotiating with Zimbabwean officials on the feasibility of establishing an ethanol-powered fuel plant in the country’s Masvingo province.
“Gaddafi is expected to visit the stalled Tokwe-Mukosi dam project in Masvingo where he has expressed interest in reviving it to sugar cane that will be used in the manufacture of ethanol,” the agency said.
Gaddafi arrived in Zimbabwe last Thursday and met President Robert Mugabe in Harare on Monday. The Libyan official’s itinerary has however been shrouded in secrecy, with only the state media allowed to follow his visit.
Ethanol production is one of the alternative fuel sources that have been pursued by Zimbabwe since the country’s economic crisis started in 2000, triggering acute shortages of petrol and diesel around the country.
The fuel was previously produced by Triangle Limited, a sugar estate in the country’s Lowveld area in Masvingo. Triangle Limited later suspended production of ethanol fuel at the height of a 1991-92 drought which triggered a drastic fall in sugar cane output.
Brazil, the world’s top sugar cane producer, pioneered ethanol fuel production from sugar cane more than 30 years ago, investing billions of dollars in research and development. African Press Agency
