Albion Estate exceeds sugar production target for 2nd successive week

…Govt investment in rehabilitating estate crucial – CEO

For the second week in a row, the Albion/Port Mourant Sugar Estate has surpassed its weekly target, resulting in the estate workers achieving their bonus and the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) creeping closer to its first crop targets.
In a statement, it was announced that the Albion/Port Mourant Estate exceeded its target for the week ending March 26, by 6.3 per cent. The previous week, the estate had achieved its target by 7.9 per cent.
This is despite 24.2mm of rainfall on the estate being recorded over a two-day period, slowing the production process. However, it was explained that the team was able to seize the momentum by extending working hours on the fields during the dryer days.
In the statement, Production Manager at the Albion/Port Mourant Estate, Goy Romain was quoted disclosing that while the estate is still suffering from poor cane yields as a result of the floods of 2021 (which directly affected the plant performance over a 12-month period starting in May 2021), this adverse situation is expected to subside in the second crop of 2022.
Romain also posited that the estate’s current achievement of its weekly target is attributed to the combined efforts of the field and factory workers who closely monitored every aspect of the value chain to bring greater consistency to the production process.
“For the second successive week, qualified employees at the Albion/Port Mourant Estate who diligently worked to achieve 80 per cent or more days for the week have earned themselves an additional day’s pay (tax free) upon the achievement of this week’s target. This, Mr Romain believes, will encourage and boost workers’ morale and turn out in the fields and bodes well for the socio-economic situation in the Corentyne,” the statement said.
“Mr Romain further noted that the overall factory performance as well as sugar recovery is showing positive results attesting to the “pol extraction” at 92 per cent which means that the factory is performing better as it extracts more of the sucrose content from the sugar cane plant.”
Meanwhile, GuySuCo Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Sasenarine Singh stated that Albion’s turnaround can be attributed to the investments made by the Government of Guyana into the capital rehabilitation programme.
According to the CEO, the support from the current Administration is encouraging as it will boost recovery and contribute to more tonnes of sugar being produced for every tonne of cane supplied to the factory. This, he noted, is in keeping with the Five-Year Strategic Plan.
GuySuCo is meanwhile aiming at a sugar production target of 20,260 Metric Tonnes (MT) across the industry for the 1st Crop 2022, which is expected to conclude on April 30, 2022. At this point in time, the fields at Berbice estates are well on target with their harvesting plan.
“The executive management commends the management and workers of all the estates especially Albion/Port Mourant Estate on the achievement of their second WPI and urges all families of sugar workers to continue to provide this consistent support to the cane harvesters and other employees on the estates as the industry continues to recover from all its challenges,” GuySuCo said in its statement.
Last year, GuySuCo had reported that 4300 hectares of sugar cane were destroyed for 2021 due to flooding. This is land equivalent to over 52,000 house lots. GuySuCo was only able to rehabilitate 38 per cent of those damaged canes.
Albion Estate, which was expected to contribute 50 per cent of sugar cane cultivation, had a mortality rate of 80 per cent due to the floods. This was cane that would have otherwise been harvested in the first crop of 2022. Berbice estates as a whole had 72 per cent more rainfall than 2020.
So unprecedented was the flooding that GuySuCo experienced earlier in the year that “the Corporation drained some 4.5 million tonnes of water off the land daily during the 65 days flood which is enough water to fill 2000 Olympic-sized swimming pools”.