The United Sugar Company of Egypt (USCE) was planning to establish a sugar refinery at Sokhna Port. The refinery was to produce 600,000 tons/year of refined sugar with future capability of expansion to 1,250,000 tons/year. The raw sugar was to be imported and received through the port. The refinery was to process the imported sugar before its dispatch for exportation and for consumption by the Egyptian industrial and domestic markets.
The main product was to be granulated sugar, while molasses was to be a byproduct of the refinery. This was a major project that aimed at reducing the gap between the production and consumption of the Egyptian and Middle East sugar markets, given the changes of the European sugar distribution market expected at the time. USCE commissioned Environics to carry out the EIA necessary for establishing the refinery.
Environics conducted site visits and document reviews to prepare the EIA, which covered the construction and operation of the sugar refinery project that comprised the following components:
– Sugar refinery
– Steam and electrical power generation
– Effluent treatment plant
The EIA included:
– Overview of the relevant laws and regulations
– Description of the project’s components and the infrastructure requirements
– Description of the environmental baseline:
o Physical environment: climate; air quality; noise; topography; geology and geomorphology; seismic activity; groundwater resources; flashflood hazards; geotechnical characteristics, and drainage network
o Biological environment: terrestrial and marine ecology
o Socio-economic environment: populations and archaeological sites
– Analysis of project alternatives
– Identification of the project’s environmental impacts and their mitigation measures
– Environmental management and monitoring plans
– Briefing on the public consultation activities and their results