Sugar shipment fails to meet deadline

[posted 10 July 2009,1245]

Fiji’s first shipment of 30,000 tonnes of sugar scheduled to leave for the United Kingdom on 15 July is now unlikely to meet its deadline.

NFU is reliably informed that up until 6 July only about 9600T of sugar had been manufactured by the three mills currently operating.

As a result, the shipment has now been rescheduled to at the end of the month by when it is expected to have the required quantity.

Consequently, the second consignment of 30,000 tonnes that was due to be shipped on 15 August, has now been delayed to September.

The buyers of Fiji’s sugar in the United Kingdom have expressed concern about the defaults on the part of the Fiji Sugar Corporation as it puts their long term agreement with FSC in considerable doubt. Fiji’s hitherto reputation as a reliable supplier of good quality sugar has been tarnished by FSC’s inability to ship sugar on schedule.

The delayed shipments are a result of the pathetic performance of the three sugar mills which began operating in late May and early June.

NFU has established that up to 6 July, the three mills had crushed 143,890 tonnes of cane and made 9600 tonnes of sugar. This meant that on average, it took 15 tonnes of cane to make a tonne of sugar (TCTS 15:1). This adverse ratio is clear evidence of serious malfunctioning problems at the mills.

The TCTS ratio at this time of the year should be around 8.5 tonnes of cane to one tonne of sugar. Using this ratio, FSC should have manufactured 16,982 tonnes of sugar – that is, 7907 tonnes more than the 9600 tonnes it made.

The loss of 7907 tonnes in monetary value amounts to $8 million, 70% of which ($5.6m or $2.24 per tonne of cane) will have to be sustained by the cane farmers.

The Sugar Cane Growers council has been advised to claim compensation for this as well as other similar losses in the future.