Sudan's biggest sugar producer plans to export up to 50,000 tonnes of animal feedstock annually to Arab Gulf countries.

Kenana is one of the few Sudanese companies outside the gold industry attracting large amounts of foreign currency, a lifeline for the African country struggling with the loss of most oil output since South Sudan's independence in 2011.

Mainly owned by the governments of Sudan, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, it plans to more than double its annual sugar output to 1 million tonnes by 2015 and expand by-products such as biofuel or animal feed.

"We have a plan to export animal feed maybe to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Arab countries," El Zein Mohamed Doush, general manager of the sugar business at Kenana's plant 270 km (170 miles) south of Khartoum, told Reuters on Tuesday.

He said Kenana was producing around 100,000 tonnes annually of animal feed for the local market of which up to 50 percent would be exported in the future. He gave no timeframe but said samples had been already accepted by customers.

Last month, the company said it expects to get $500 million from its shareholders in a capital increase this year and eyes to raise an extra $200 million in a share sale on the Johannesburg bourse in 2014. – Reuters