About $3 million worth of electricity was sold by the Labasa FSC Mill through its cogeneration plant during this year’s cane processing season.
Labasa FSC Mill general manager, Karia Christopher, highlighted this as the Labasa Mill ended its processing season for the year on Wednesday night.
He informed Ratu Savenaca Ritova, who came on behalf of Tui Labasa as the chief guest for the closing ceremony.
The Labasa Mill produced over 70,000 tonnes of sugar when it came to a stop bettering its forecast target of 60,000 tonnes.
As calculations continue, expectations are it might go beyond 80,000 tonnes.
Mr Christopher said the Fiji Electricity Authority has been saving a lot of foreign exchange by relying on them to supply part of the electricity – which is green power – to all the areas in Vanua Levu.
“So this year we generated extra revenue because we have the fuel available,” Mr Christopher said.
“FSC industry is diversifying because we cannot rely on sugar alone as the current market price situation is diluted.”
Mr Christopher said the industry was coming up with new development plans and very soon a refinery factory would be established in Labasa.

Processing
Mr Christopher said of the four mills in Fiji, Labasa had produced the most sugar.
The tonnes of cane to tonnes to sugar ratio this year was 8:3 compared to 2014 when it was 8:1.
“Farmers in the 10 sectors supplied good quality cane this year and I thank them for their hard work,” Mr Christopher said.
“The mill this year compared to the past year operated exceptional thanks to all the staff of the mill and technical staff that made sure that the mill was functioning.”
Mr Christopher said the past year, they used to shut down the mill when there was shortage of cane and they did the maintenance of the mill at that time.
But, he said this year they could not do this because the delivery of cane supply by the farmers was very fast.
There are more than 4000 sugarcane farmers from the 10 sectors in Vanua Levu.

Final Wash Up Payment
Farmers in Labasa are waiting for the Sugar Industry Tribunal to announce when the final wash up payment will be released.
Sugar Cane Growers Council chief executive Sundresh Chetty said he was also waiting to receive the announcement.
He said the payment was expected to be released at the end of this month. However, it would definitely be before Diwali.