Flour Mills of Nigeria says its flooded Sunti Golden Sugar Estate (SGSE), will not pose any major immediate threat to the earlier indicated earnings projections of the firm.
As a result of the long and intensive rainfalls recorded recently at the northern and central parts of the Niger basin, coupled with massive floods triggered by severe downpours at the Sokoto Rima basin, the Kainji and Jeba dams witnessed an upsurge in the lateral flow of water.
This led to Mainstream Energy Solutions (MESL) operators of the Kainji and Jebba reservoirs to initiate a strategic spillway operation to control the volume of floods to weaken the flood peaks.
“While SGSE has suffered some disruptions to operations and delays to our operations and delays to our expansion project to increase the area under cultivation to 4,000 hectares by mid-2021, the actual state of damage to the current sugarcane crop at Sunti, can only truly be assessed once the floodwater subsides,” Flour Mills said.
The resulting high inflows in the downstream Niger River have caused a breach to the extensive and properly designed dyke systems at Sunti Golden Sugar Estates (SGSE), Flour Mills said.
“As a precaution, immediate safety protocols have been instituted to safeguard employees, property and equipment.”