BNDES, the Brazilian development bank, has extended a US$238.5mn loan to a sugar manufacturer.

The finance has been given to Adecoagro Vale do Ivinhema and will be used to implement a new sugar and ethanol mill in the municipality of Ivinhema, in the south-west of Brazil.

It will also be used to pay for the implementation of a 120MW co-generation unit and a transmission system. It’s hoped that the facilities will be in operation by 2014, with the mill producing approximately 9.3 million tonnes of sugarcane per year – almost 1.5% of the national capacity.

Adecoagro Vale do Ivinhema is part of the Adecoagro Group, which is heavily involved in the agricultural and commodities sectors across Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina.