Countries

Welcome to AFRICABIZ,

Welcome to Africabiz Online Synopsis RSS Feed edition. Previous issue available at this link.

Dear faithful reader,

In this issue, we continue the series about Sorghum, a "Life Saver" according to a Chinese saying - introduced here, with a ingress into the very important energy problem which the majority of sub-Saharan African countries are struggling with, in their quest for a better living conditions for the populations.

Due to the skyrocketing price of crude oil since more than two years running, sub-Saharan African countries are having more and more difficulties to allocating the necessary financial means to the development of their economy. Their scarce financial means are burnt away into purchasing of petroleum products.

This very sad situation is not going to be resolved for the better if measures are not taken to setup alternatives to fossil energy to powering the development of the economy.

In current delivery of AFRICABIZ ONLINE MONTHLY ISSUE an introduction is made to Ethanol / bio-fuel as an alternative to fossil energy. And here, below in the Business Opportunities section, a brief study is exposed concerning the savings a landlocked country such as Burkina-Faso could harvest from the implementation of an alternative energy strategy to fossil based fuel.

In the near future we are planning to dedicating a paper to the energy problem in Africa.

HAPPY AND SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS YEAR 2002

The first year of the new century is gone. Time is passing by very quickly! AFRICABIZ team wishes you all and your loves ones a very festive Xmas 2001 and a successful business year for 2002.

"CONTRIBUTOR'S GUIDELINES" are available here. You are invited to contribute to AFRICABIZ ONLINE MONTHLY ISSUE - with articles related to "How Africa Could Bridge The Developing Gap".

Many thanks for subscribing to Africabiz. See you here next month on January 15, 2002.

Dr. B.M. Quenum
Click here to get email address

Business Opportunities

ETHANOL / BIO-FUEL PRODUCTION AS FOREIGN EXCHANGE SAVING ECONOMIC ACTIVITY FOR OIL DEPRIVED AFRICAN COUNTRIES

According to The World Oil Markets / International Energy Outlook 2001 Report - available here - Oil demand in Africa is projected to grow at an average annual rate of 3.6 percent, from 2.5 million barrels per day in 1999 to 5.4 million barrels per day in 2020.

Crude oil prices remained above US $ 25 per barrel in nominal terms for most of 2000 and have been near US $ 30 per barrel in the early months of 2001. And in this December 2001, it is fluctuating between US $ 20 and US $ 25.

Prices were influenced by the disciplined adherence to announced cutbacks in production by members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). OPEC's successful market management strategy was an attempt to avoid a repeat of the ultra-low oil price environment of 1998 and early 1999.

So one could reasonably assume that OPEC's members and non members are going to stick to the successful market regulating strategy; and therefore the price of Crude Oil will remain near to US $ 25 per barrel (159 liters) for many years running.

That is to say that the demand for crude oil / gasoline is going to continue to exerting - for the two current decades of the 21 Th. century - heavy drain / burden on the meager national budgets of most sub-Saharan African countries. These countries will be "burning away" a very big slice of their scarce financial means into purchasing crude oil. And what is "burnt away" will not be available to sustaining the economic growth rate beyond the double-digit growth range as here extensively exposed.

However there are hopefully alternative scenarios to avoiding the drastic drain of financial means into purchasing and burning away crude oil.

One of the more efficient scenario is to setup a program of renewable energy - Ethanol as bio-fuel - to powering the growth of the economy. In AFRICABIZ ONLINE MONTHLY ISSUE here available an extensive introductory ingress had been made to covering the matter.

Assuming that such a program to producing ethanol as bio-fuel is implemented by Burkina-Faso - a landlocked Western African country - let's review and quickly evaluate the resulting economic benefits for the country.

-1-Figures exposed in this Table related to costs production of bio-fuel from different feedstocks lead us to adopt the selling price of one liter of ethanol / bio-fuel equal to US $ 0.624

In table below are reported the average percentage growth rate of petroleum products' consumption in Burkina-Faso:

AVERAGE OF PERCENTAGE GROWTH RATE OF PETROLEUM PRODUCTS CONSUMPTION IN BURKINA-FASO OVER 36 YEARS RUNNING Source: click here
Gasoline	3.60
White petroleum	3.78
Diesel / Gasohol	3.57
Fuel oil	3.3
Butane Gas	4.39

- 2- Based on figures above mentioned Table below lists the evolution of petroleum products' consumption (butane gas excluded) - in metric tons x 1,000 - for 10 years running starting from year 2000 - (Years 2000 / 2010 figures compounded from year 1999 figure available here.)

Years	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010
Metric tons x 1,000	284	294	305	315	326	338	350	363	376	389	403

- 3- The current global selling price per metric ton of petroleum product in Burkina-Faso is in the range of US $ : 870. As explained in point 1 above the selling price of ethanol / bio-fuel will be in the range of US $ 624 per metric ton.

- 4 -The total cost for Burkina-Faso's consumers to purchasing various kinds of petroleum based fuel products is reported in table below as follows:

a) US $ x 1,000,000 - line 2 for pure petroleum products;
b) US $ x 1,000,000 - line 3 for the portion of petroleum products blended 50 / 50 with ethanol / bio-fuel;
c) US $ x 1,000,000 - line 4 for the portion of Ethanol / Bio-fuel blended with petroleum product
d) US $ x 1,000,000 - line 6: Saving resulting from blending 50 / 50 Ethanol bio-fuel with petroleum products.

1	Years	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010
2	Pure Petroleum	247	256	265	274	284	294	305	316	327	338	351
3	50 / 50 Blending Petroleum	124	128	133	137	142	147	153	158	164	169	175
4	50 / 50 Blending Ethanol / Bio-fuel	89	92	95	98	102	105	109	113	117	121	126
5	Total : Line 3 + Line 4	213	220	228	235	244	252	262	271	281	290	301
6	Gains : Line 5 - Line 2	34	36	37	39	40	42	43	45	46	48	50

The following formula gives the forecasted savings to be expected for a certain blending ratio and for a given year consumption base:

(Price of petroleum products) - (Price of Ethanol / Bio-fuel) x (Annual metric tons / consumption of pure petroleum products) x (Blending percentage of ethanol / bio-fuel)

This means that the more lowest the price of Ethanol / bio-fuel and highest the percentage of blending ethanol / bio-fuel, the more important the resulting savings. See this table for various costs of production based on different feedstocks.

Using above formulation - for year 2010 - the evolution of the savings (In US $ x 1,000,000) versus a scenario of different blending ratios is reported in following table and graphic (Year 2010 consumption = 403,000 metric tons):

% of Ethanol / Bio-fuel	10	20	30	40	50	60	70	80	90
Savings	9.9	19.8	29.7	39.6	49.6	59.5	69.4	79.3	89.2

- 5 - In addition to foreign exchange savings, the following non-comprehensive benefits could be listed for the sustained development of Burkina-Faso's economy:

- Development and use of locally-produced, renewable fuel, and reduction of demand for imported petroleum. - Boosting of local agriculture productions and additional markets and revenues to farmers; leading consequently to the increase of rural folks purchasing power as here extensively exposed. - Beneficial environmental impact through the usage of organic municipal solid waste materials to generating a higher value end-product. - Low level of carbon dioxide emitted by motor engines and then preservation of the quality of the atmosphere. Etc.

Control Your Desktop

HOW TO MIGRATE YOUR FILES AND SETTINGS FROM YOUR OLD WINDOWS 9x COMPUTER TO A BRAND NEW WINDOWS XP ONE

Windows XP is now preinstalled on the majority of new computers available on the marketplace; and many of those who waited patiently - like me - to upgrade their hardware are now facing the problem of how to salvage and transfer their Window 9x files and settings to the new brand computer equipped with Windows XP.

To address the migration's problems Microsoft has included a new utility in Windows XP (A merger of Window 2000 and Windows ME).

The utility "Files and Settings Transfer Wizard" is capable of smoothly moving most commonly used settings, such as bookmarks, Word documents, wallpaper, and more from your old computer to your new one.

On the new machine, you run the wizard and select the transferring mode for the files. The wizard can act automatically and requires only that you do not operate another application on both computers till the transfer is terminated.

There are other possibilities to perform the migration with dedicated software such as DesktopDNA from Miramar.com and Personality TranXport from Tranxition.com

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