WET weather may have played havoc with the far north’s 2016 cane crush but records are still falling at several of the region’s mills.
Tully Mill general manager Barry Dun said the crush to date had been seriously disrupted by wet weather.
“So far we have crushed 1.1 million tonnes with an estimate of 3 million tonnes (the biggest crush in history) and there lies the problem,” Mr Dun said.
“With the weather issues presented, its going to be a difficult challenge but the mill is crushing at rates never seen before. We are breaking records all over the place.”
“The best possible scenario is to finish crushing by end of the December, but the chances of that happening with no wet weather delays is low.”
Mr Dun said sugar quality was of the usual high standard.
“Cane quality is reasonable and is the reason behind the high crushing rates,” Mr Dun said.
It’s a similar story at other mills owned by MSF Sugar and Mackay Sugar. The Tableland Mill at Arriga, Mareeba, is the only operation unaffected by wet weather.
MSF’s Phil Miskin, general manager North Queensland operations, said the mill was half way through crushing the 2016 estimated crop of 840,000 tonnes.
“While there has been a lot of wet weather interruptions down the coast, the Tablelands has not had any wet weather impacts,” Mr Miskin said.
“In fact we have not lost any days. We expect to finish second or third week of November.
“It’s been an exceptional year for the factory and the reliability of mill has been second to none this year.”
It’s a different story at Mulgrave and South Johnstone Mills, which have lost 22 days and 20 days respectively to wet weather.
Between the two mills, MSF expects to crush 3.1 million tonnes of cane.
“It’s possible we will set a record at South Johnstone,” Mr Miskin said.
He said Mulgrave Mill had only had two weeks of full operation with one of those crushing a record 72,000 tonnes, the highest weekly crush in a number of years.
“While the ccs is down at the coastal mills, the crop is cutting well above what we expected,” Mr Miskin said.
“The same conditions that attributed to the ccs being down being a mild winter and rainfall which resulted in the crop not maturing in the normal way in winter has helped the cane continue to grow during harvest.”
The Mackay Sugar-owned Mossman Mill has lost around 15 days to wet weather, however, mill manager Hayden Slattery said the mill’s crushing performance puts it only three to four days behind schedule.
“We estimated 850,000 tonnes at start of season and that could icnrease to 890,000 tonnes due to continued growth,” Mr Slattery said.
“The week ending 28 August we crushed out largest amount since 2002 (when we went to continuous crushing) which for a mill our size is quite good.”
