After 16 weeks, Labasa remains the best

AFTER 16 weeks of crushing, the Labasa mill continues to be the best performer with a total of 45,285 tonnes of cane processed so far.

In a statement released yesterday, the Fiji Sugar Corporation said the three mills had crushed a total of 1,097,133 tonnes of cane and produced 107,406 tonnes of sugar with an average tonnes cane to tonnes sugar (TCTS) of 10.2.

“To date, Labasa has crushed 439,517 tonnes of cane with a TCTS of 9.7,” the FSC said.

“The mill is operating better in comparison to the same period over the last three years.

“Last week, the mill produced 3595 tonnes of sugar and stoppage period totalled 13.2 hours.”

The FSC said the Lautoka mill crushed 401,601 tonnes of cane and produced 37,880 tonnes of sugar with a TCTS of 9.7.

However, burnt cane continues to be an issue and this led to stoppages for a cleaning procedures.

FSC said the mill supplied $100,000 worth of power to the national grid.

In Ba, the Rarawai mill has crushed 256,015 tonnes of cane and produced 24,241 tonnes of sugar with a TCTS of 10.6.

“For the past week, the Rarawai mill has crushed 24,508 tonnes of cane and produced 2242 tonnes of sugar, slightly lower than the week’s budget,” FSC said.

“The lower throughput and recoveries were associated with a failure of one boiler feed water pump which restricted adequate steam flow to the process.

“The pump was repaired in the scheduled stop over the weekend, and has been operational since,”the FSC said.