The Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) is working towards a production target of 97,420 metric tonnes (MT) for 2021 and it is rapidly moving ahead with maintenance as it prepares for the start of the first crop later this month.
GuySuCo Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Sasenarine Singh yesterday said the company is hoping to complete maintenance by February 20th in order to begin grinding.
Singh noted that the total production for 2020 was 88,868 MT.
“This year the target is more doable, it’s more achievable, it’s more pragmatic… We are going to generate out targets based on the cane standing on the ground,” he stressed.
According to him, the first crop will start on February 20th and run until May 15th, with a target of 42, 609 MT. The second crop is expected to start in July and run into November.
For the first crop, Singh said, GuySuCo is working to improve the land preparation process and focus on ensuring the plants are fed at the right time. “For years GuySuCo has underfed our plants … That ends today. Our plants are going to get their fertiliser at the right time so they can produce the right quality of sugar at the right time, so they can be taken to the factory at the right time to produce they right amount of sugar,” he said.
Thirdly, he added, the corporation is looking to improve the efficiency in cane transport. “The weakest link in this business is bringing sugar from the field to the factory. That is where we lose most of our money because the model basically says within 48 hours your sugar should be in the factory and we have to make sure our canes as much as possible get from the field into the factory within that 48 hours period,” he said.
Blairmont maintenance
During a media tour with several managers of the Blairmont Estate yesterday, Singh disclosed that $400 million is being spent on maintenance at the location.
During the tour, the media was given a firsthand opportunity to see maintenance being done on at the estate.
The works include repairs of fans of the boilers in order to increase air flow to support combustion. Furnace repairs are also expected to improve air flow, while rehab works on carrier chains are expected to reduce factory down time.
Stabroek News was told that the maintenance will increase efficiency and steam generation which allows for an increase in electricity production using bagasse, thereby reducing the dependence on fossil fuel.
Presently workers are installing three re-shell rollers at a cost of $21 million and this is expected to enhance the milling operation and improve sugar recovery.
Additionally, work on the crystallisers is expected to result in an improvement in sugar quality, grain size, sugar recovery and reduction in boiling house congestion.
Further, improvements are being made in the cane wash system, which is expected to result in better milling, performance and steam generation.
The corporation is also replacing the worn cane conveyors components so as to improve reliability and avoid stoppages.
Efficiency and expansion
Meanwhile, Singh yesterday stated the corporation is also working to ensure that it is able to produce sugar more efficiently. He noted that he met with managers and unions yesterday and they discussed the first crop plan to make sure that it is possible. A major problem for GuySuCo is that its cost of production for sugar is above the world market price.
“As CEO, I have a mandate and a charge from the Government of Guyana to ensure I preserve the 8200 jobs that currently exist in GuySuCo and with a view of expanding”, he stressed.
The foundation of their plan rests on “increasing our revenue stream, attacking our non-value added costs but more importantly ensuring that we deliver on the manifesto promise of His Excellency, the President,” Singh said.
Furthermore, the CEO noted that at all levels the company has been retraining and encouraging staff to be cost-conscious and focused on markets as they can be the best sellers of their products.
He then called on former sugar workers to rejoin the corporation as he stressed that the target now has never been more achievable than the targets within the last five years.
Singh said that he believed sugar will reclaim its rightful place in the country and a brighter day will come.
In January, he noted, GuySuCo renew-ed its molasses contract with DDL. “We are proud to announce that the 2021 agree-ment offers a much higher price than we were getting even three months ago and we are grateful for the partnership that DDL is bringing to GuySuCo,” he said.
Additionally, GuySuCo was able to secure US$30 more per metric tonne in the Trinidad market, which he said was the corporation’s biggest market in the Caribbean. “We are getting more money out of it.”
According to Singh, GuySuCo has also been able to expand its St. Vincent market and has started negotiation with Grenada to restart selling packaged sugar to the Grenada market.
Further, he noted that a plan to expand the packaging plant at the Blairmont and Enmore estates to a total cost of $600 million has been greenlit.
“What we are doing right now is building an inventory of packaged sugar. So when somebody in Trinidad calls and says, ‘Hey we need so much tonnes of Demerara Gold, it’s there. We mustn’t build it at that point. It must be there already, available to sell, ’cause this is a business, this is not a charity,” the CEO said.
Singh said that when he started the job he met a horrible situation, where at Rose Hall, Skeldon and Enmore estates they lost billions of dollars in “real value.”
For instance, at the Rose Hall Estate there were 12 working serviceable tractors in 2015 which were reduced to “shells.”
“We’ve lost so much equipment and we have three factories that were never decommissioned,” he said. , while explaining that it was found that was as if they were closed and everyone ran out of the.
Re-engineer
Singh, who has been on the ground meeting with managers, workers and the unions since taking the post of CEO, noted yesterday, that the corporation’s turnaround is based on the foundation of a five-year strategic plan. “This first crop is our opportunity as the new management team to re-engineer this business and drive the outcome that we have in our five year plan,” he said, while stressing that the corporation has a commitment to shareholders and the people of Guyana to make the industry viable “but it will take some time.”
He said the mantra going forward is to produce what they can sell “for the most possible cash”. According to Singh, they are not excited to sell raw bulk sugar in the market and “it’s an afterthought, if it happens it happens because we had no other alternative”.
Instead, the corporation’s primary market going forward will remain packaged value-added sugar — Demerara Gold, Enmore Crystals and a new brand which is expected to be launched for both local and international markets.
“We are quadrupling actually over the next five years our marketing of value-added packaged sugar both locally and in the Caribbean and international market,” he added.
