9 November 2023

Crush in Australia

Sugar cane has been processed in the three sugar mills in Australia since the beginning of June. Heavy rainfall in July led to unusually long interruptions in processing.

After a largely good start to the crush, except for the second line at the Marian site, the combination of unusually frequent and long processing stops due to heavy rain and ongoing technical interruptions significantly delayed processing progress in the meantime. However, the rain not only made the fields impassable, making harvesting impossible, it also temporarily led to higher cane volumes combined with a lower sugar content, as expected.

Mackay Sugar currently expects a slight recovery in sugar content, which is close to average. The harvest estimates for sugar cane volumes, on the other hand, had to be lowered again. Overall, a longer crush is still expected than in the first estimate. In recent weeks, the good performance of the three factories has enabled the company to partially reduce the time lag to this plan.

Mackay Sugar has implemented a new planning tool for sugar cane logistics. The line scheduling system improves the availability of containers for rail transport (bins) and thus the supply to the mills.

If processing conditions remain dry and there are still few technical interruptions, the crush in the three sugar mills can be expected to be completed before Christmas this year.