Kilombero's New Distillery Commissioned

"Illovo's new distillery at Kilombero was commissioned on 19 August and delivered its first alcohol to TDL on 23 September."

IMAGE: As Kilombero’s new distillery neared completion in the background, Veneshree Naidu (centre), the distillery manager, took a walkabout with Burger Pretorius (right), group ethanol export marketing manager, and Justin Geyve (left), finance and planning director of Tanzania Distilleries, a Merebank customer for more than 10 years and also instrumental in the establishment of the distillery at Kilombero. They will be the primary customer of Illovo Distillers (Tanzania) Ltd (IDTL).

ILLOVO’S new distillery at Kilombero was commissioned on 19 August and delivered its first alcohol to TDL on 23 September. The Illovo Distillery Tanzania Limited (IDTL) 40kl/day Extra Neutral Alcohol (ENA) distillery plant was built adjacent to Kilombero Sugar’s K2 sugar mill in Tanzania.

The project was constructed on an EPC (engineering procurement and construction) basis by PRAJ Industries–India, with DB Shapriya as their major Tanzanian contractor.

Excellent progress was made in preparing the Operational Team for taking over, with training having taken place in South Africa and India. Following successful startup and performance testing, the plant will be operated extensively by Tanzanian nationals. The project recorded excellent safety statistics.

TDL (Tanzanian Distilleries Ltd), which has a long-standing relationship with Illovo Merebank, will be the primary customer of the new distillery, which is a superb value-adding asset to the Illovo Sugar Group.