Buriram Sugar to use sales profit for power venture
Buriram Sugar will be taking a proactive approach to its white- and raw-sugar business locally and abroad with a plan to raise cane-crushing capacity from 17,000 tonnes to 22,000 tonnes per day to enable 3 million tonnes to be crushed per season.
The company is also prepared to proceed with its third biomass power plant under the management of Buriram Power Plus Co. The project is expected to be completed and |ready to supply electricity early next |year.
Anant Tangtongwechakit, chief executive officer, said yesterday that Buriram Sugar would use its sugar profits to finance its alternative-energy ventures, including Bt600 million for the third 9.9-megawatt biomass power plant.
Construction commenced on the third plant in the middle of this month. It will sell 8MW under the feed-in-tariff. For the 2014-15 production season, Buriram Sugar will crush 1.95 million tonnes of cane to produce 230,000 tonnes of sugar.
For the 2015-16 season, it expects to boost cane-crushing capacity to 2.5 million tonnes, then 3 million.
The higher cane output is due to the increase in yield per rai, the selection of proper sugar-cane type, use of modern technology and government promotion of sugar-cane growing instead of rice. The company’s two alternative power-generation plants have commenced commercial distribution of 16MW to the Provincial Electricity Authority.
"Our goal is to create a strong base in terms of sugar-cane yields and boost sugar production to achieve higher revenue, which can help fund investment in the alternative-energy business and contribute to the company’s overall business operations," Anant said.
