GuySuCo to construct $400M punt dumper
CEO of GuySuCo, Sasenarine Singh
CEO of GuySuCo, Sasenarine Singh

THE Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) has big plans for how it intends to spend the $6 billion it was allocated over the past five months. One of the big ticket items on GuySuCo’s agenda includes the construction of a $400 million punt dumper for the Albion Estate. This was disclosed by the Corporation’s Chief Executive Officer, Sasenarine Singh, during a press conference hosted at the Albion Estate on Friday. Singh told reporters that given GuySuCo’s delicate financial status, projects and spending are being prioritised and executed in a cost effective manner. To this end, it was indicated that once constructed and put to use, the punt dumper is projected to save GuySuCo at least $127 million annually, as it is expected to add efficiency to the operations of the Albion Estate. Singh pointed to the fact that sugar estates usually have three critical functions – to plant and maintain healthy cane stalks, to ensure that the harvested cane gets to the factory in a timely manner, and the efficient processing of the cane, at the factory level.

He noted that one of GuySuCo’s biggest downfalls has been the failure to get the sugarcane from the fields to the factory in a timely manner. He explained that once the cane stalks are left beyond 48 hours, the product loses much of its viability. With the operation of a punt dumper, each punt of harvested sugarcane will be transported to the factory in a more efficient and timely manner. In the coming weeks, cane harvesters and machines will be dispatched across the estate to harvest 3,900 hectares of land. Albion Estate, one of the three estates that survived the previous administration’s closures, is the largest sugar-producing entity in the country, and, from all indications, this is expected to continue in the near term, as the output from the 3,900 hectares of land is anticipated to be 261,000 tonnes of cane.
According to Singh, the Albion Estate is well on its way to becoming “cash neutral” by 2026. “It will be off of the Government’s saline,” Singh predicted.

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