20091228

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Sudan has begun exporting its first 5 million litres of ethanol to the European Union, at an initial price of around 450 euros a cubic metre, officials from the Kenana Sugar company said on Monday.

Kenana, Sudan's largest sugar company, this year inaugurated the ethanol plant which aims to produce 65 million litres a year of the bio fuel.

"Yesterday a vessel carrying 5 million litres of ethanol went to Rotterdam," said company secretary Fareed Omer Medani.

"This has been purchased by the European Union," he said, adding by the end of February a further 20 million litres would be exported in four separate shipments.

Kenana's Managing Director Mohamed El Mardi told Reuters the price per cubic metre for the December shipment was about 450 euros FOB.

But he said prices for the four further shipments would vary, depending on the market.

"The prices are not fixed prices," he said. "For the five shipments we will have 5 different prices -- January/February prices are higher than in December."

Mardi said it was the first export of ethanol from Sudan, adding the shipments would continue regularly at 5 million litres every month.