Location & The Factory History

It is located in Afar Regional Government, Zone 3, between Awash Fentalena and Dulecha Woreda, at an altitude of 820 meters above sea level. It is 272 km away from Addis Ababa and 750 km away from Djibouti (Port of Djibouti).

Kesem Sugar Factory is located in Zone 3 of Afar National Regional Government in Awash Fintalena and Dulecha District at an altitude of 787 meters above sea level and 263 km northeast of Addis Ababa.

The place where the factory established was previously a cotton farm development by foreigners (Sabure Battista/Italian investor) from 1904 to 1968, Awara Melka fruit (orchar) development by Upper Awash Agro Industry from 1968 to 1999, and from 1999 to June 24, 2004 As an expansion of the Metahara Sugar Factory, it has been growing sugarcane including various fruits on 920 ha of land, and since June 24, 2004, it has been separated from the Metahara Sugar Factory and established as an independent sugarcane development project.

Dam construction, irrigation, infrastructure, land supply and other related works have been under the ownership and budget of the Ministry of Water, Irrigation and Energy. The factory has been started with the idea of developing 20,000 hectares of land using the Kessem Dam, which can store 500 million cubic meters of water. Namely, it was planned to work on 3,500 ha in Kessem, 9,500 ha in Kebena (first phase) and 7,000 ha at Bolhamo (second phase). 

In the first phase of the factory construction plan, a factory with a capacity to crush 6,000 tons of sugarcane per day, 153,000 tons of sugar, 12,500 cubic meters of ethanol and 26 megawatts of electricity per year was considered and the construction was carried out. In the second phase, it is planned and built to produce 200,000 tons of sugar, 30,000 cubic meters of ethanol and 39 megawatts of electricity per year by increasing the capacity to 10,000 tons of sugarcane per day.