–critical equipment to be upgraded, replaced; all-weather road being rehabilitated

ACCESS to financing has improved the prospects at the Albion Sugar Estate, where authorities are looking to ramp up operations and upgrade the facilities there, through an investment of more than $2 billion in capital works.
The Albion Estate, one of three producing sugar estates, spans 9,616 hectares of land and has the grinding capacity of 170 tonnes of cane per hour.
Established in the 19th century, the sugar estate served the local sugar industry independently until being merged with the Port Mourant Estate in 1953. This amalgamation formed the largest operating unit within the local sugar industry.

While the immediate aim might not be to return the facility to its former glory, management of the estate has big plans to ensure that complete efficiency is achieved.
Manager of the Albion Sugar Estate, Threbhowan Shivprasad, said over $2B has been set aside for work which will stretch from the field to the factory.
“The factory would take 40 per cent and agriculture, 60 per cent… this includes machinery and equipment, the infrastructure like bridges, revetment and so on, so it would take a large sum,” Shivprasad said in response to a question from the Guyana Chronicle, following a tour of the estate on Wednesday.
The need for critical work at the estate was exposed during the second crop of 2020, when the estate had ‘a lot’ of downtime.
From the snapping of a chain to a leaking bushing, the estate found itself dealing with mounting problems created by a lack of tangible investments over the past five years.

In 2017, the former A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) Coalition Government announced the closure of several sugar estates across the country; the move saw four sugar estates being closed, and 7,000 sugar workers losing their jobs.
However, in 2020, the corporation was allocated a sum of $7 billion. A sum of $3 billion was used to recapitalise the Rose Hall, Skeldon, and Enmore sugar estates while the remaining $4 billion was allocated to support rehabilitation works at the Uitvlugt, Blairmont and Albion sugar estates. A further $2 billion has been set aside in Budget 2021 for capital works to be carried out at the various sugar estates across the country.
Although this continued investment augurs well for Albion and other estates, Shivprasad said some equipment at his facility has outlived its productive life by over 10 years in some cases.

“We operated for the past years when the other estates were closed… we were promised that resources would come and it never happened so we had to work with whatever we had… they did not purchase any new equipment and machinery.
“We cannot keep patching and welding… the boilers also have major issues… we have leaking tube lines, so instead of 40,000 pounds per hour, you are getting less than that so you have to do investment in these things to improve that,” the estate manager reasoned.
Based on the existing conditions at the estate, authorities are anticipating about 125 hours of downtime. But, with the capital injections, grinding hours could increase to about 140 very soon.

Pending renovations to the factory has not hindered progress, as work has started already on the rehabilitation of the estate’s all-weather road, which, once upgraded, will improve cultivation and cane transportation. The estate is also in the process of acquiring tillage tractors.
Additional machines, while improving tillage of the land, will contribute broadly to the management of pests and weeds.
Those capital investments are being made at a time when GuySuCo is working to have all of its estates ISO certified to improve quality assurance.
Recently, during a visit to the Blairmont Sugar Estate, GuySuCo’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Sasenarine Singh, highlighted that the corporation will be focussing on expanding its sale of packaged sugar in Caribbean Community (CARICOM), North America and the local markets.
The corporation has since set a target to produce approximately 97,420 metric tonnes of sugar by year-end and breathe new life into the country’s sugar industry,