WET weather disruptions earlier this year has resulted in Wilmar Sugar making preparations to continue the crushing season past Christmas and into the New Year.
General Manager Cane Supply and Grower Relations, Paul Giordani said rain had continued to disrupt the 2022 crushing season and they were now preparing to crush past Christmas.
“We have been consulting with grower collectives about extended season finish dates and are working with growers, harvesting contractors and our employees on plans to crush into early January”, he announced.
“Our eight mills have now processed a total of 12.45M tonnes of cane, which represents 76 per cent of the forecast 16.28M tonne crop”.
“With world sugar prices currently above $600 a tonne, we remain focused on work ing with growers and harvesting contractors to get the whole crop off”.
In the Burdekin, Mr Giordani said wet weather had significantly disrupted harvesting over the past month and had created additional processing challenges from stale burnt cane and in cane with high dirt levels.
“With improved ground conditions and cleaner cane supply, crush rates have now returned to budgeted levels,” he said.
“We are continuing to transfer cane to Invicta Mill from the other Burdekin mills. Based on projected throughputs and additional time built in for wet weather”, Mr Giordani said they expected the last Burdekin mill to finish the season in the first week of January.
