Season outlook: Looking good
By RACHNA LAL
The Fiji Sugar Corporation executive chairman, Abdul Khan, says they will push for a number of major capital investment projects to start off this year.
“The capital investments we are looking at are in terms of ethanol, sugar refinery and the co-generation projects,” he said.
Mr Khan said these will be the major highlights of the year for them.
The other thing the corporation will be looking into seriously is bringing the much-talked about mechanical harvesters.
Mr Khan said this is because they are seeing the number of people available as cane cutters are diminishing.
“So what we are going to do is fill that gap. Obviously we will not be able to do that 100 per cent,” he said.
“But whatever the gap there is, where we can use mechanical harvesters, we will definitely introduce these.”
Crops planted and targets
Mr Khan said except for the Rakiraki area where there does not seem to be much rain, in the rest of the areas, the crop is looking quite good this early in the season.
“We are quietly confident we might see two million tonnes or more of sugarcane available for processing in this season,” he said.
“If we do get that, our target forecast for sugar make is around 200,000 tonnes to 210,000 tonnes and therefore we should be able to achieve that.”
Processing and maintenance
Meanwhile, Mr Khan indicated they are looking at starting the cane processing season at all the four mills in June but depending on the cane maturity.
“This is subject to the sugarcane maturity to ensure there is enough cane to extract the sugar,” Mr Khan said.
Cane processing season is what used to be called the sugarcane crushing season but it is now called cane processing season because the sugarcane is now processed.
Mr Khan further confirmed they started off with the maintenance of the four mills the past week and are well and truly into it.
“We just want to make sure that our mills are prepared for the coming season,” he said.
“The mills are in reasonable conditions. Taking into account the age of some of the machinery we have in our four mills, we just have to ensure we maintain them the best we can.
“I think if we do the right maintenance and have it targeted so that it gives the best value, we should be able to operate our mills efficiently once again.
“Now that we have started the maintenance, we will go right through to the cane processing season.”
Cane access road
The Ministry of Sugar has invited expressions of interest from reputable companies to undertake upgrading of cane access roads in Fiji’s cane belt.
Cane access roads provide a vital link between farmers and the sugar mills in the transportation of cut cane for processing.
Mr Khan said Government normally allocates $2 million towards the upgrade of cane access roads.
“What we want to do is once we identify those cane access roads that need maintaining, we want to ensure it is maintained to the required standards,” he said.
Export markets
With our preferential sugar access into the European Union market coming to an end in 2017, Mr Khan said they are continually looking at new markets.
He, however, stated: “It is difficult to find new market.”
“I think at the moment because the world market price is suppressed compared to what we get in the EU market because of our preferential access.
“The question that every buyer would ask is why would they pay us a premium when they can get the sugar at the world market price which is a lot lower – this is a logical question.”
Standover cane
Responding to complaint lodged by the National Farmers Union demanding for compensation for standover cane in 2013, Mr Khan said they take each complaint as it comes.
“We investigate it and if it worth taking further, we do and if not we advise them what the outcome is,” he said.
