Sugar production in Cuba this year does not seem to overcome the worst prospects. In Ciego de Ávila, the authorities have reported several “breaks” in two plants that limit “the parameters of efficiency and productivity.”
Eduardo Larrosa Vázquez, an official of the Azcuba group in that province, declared to the official newspaper Invasive what 600,000 tons of cane remain to be harvestedwhich “makes compliance with the previously conceived harvest very tense.”
The blame for the delays is also due, according to the state director, to the “interconnection” of the Ciro Redondo power plant, known as “the Colossus of the Center”, with the bioelectric plant installed on the island in 2020.
The authorities reported just a few days ago that the bioelectric plant was going through difficulties due to the lack of biomass from the marabou and bagasse, because precisely Ciro Redondo, who supplies him with this material, does not have enough cane availability.
Until the third week of March, 225,000 tons were milled in Ciego de Ávila and more than 60,000 were “linked” to Sancti Spíritus.
The designated president described the current sugar campaign as “bad”, but stressed that the sector, historic for the country, “cannot disappear”
The “technical flaws” in the boilers produced this month have caused, detailed Larrosa Vázquez, that the Ecuador plant is at 56% of its power and on January 1, at 63%. With this, the performance in the province is at 58% of its capacity.
Once the breakdowns have been resolved, the official assured, “an improvement in the efficiency parameters” is expected in April.
President Miguel Díaz-Canel spoke about the harvest this Monday. The designated president described the current sugar campaign as “bad”, but stressed that the sector, historic for the country, “cannot disappear.”
Díaz-Canel chaired a meeting with regional leaders of the Communist Party in which, among other issues, progress in the sector was analysed, and he said that the face of the harvest must be “changed”, for which it will be necessary to “overcomply ” Planting plan.
Last February, during a visit to the province by the deputy prime minister, Jorge Luis Tapia Fonseca, a disastrous result in the sugar harvest was already predicted. The official then verified that the investment of more than 330 million pesos that was made at the beginning of the year to start grinding at the Ciro Redondo mill had not been of any use.
The authorities had scheduled 11 previous actions that had to be carried out to achieve the objective, but none had been carried out. six of them, said in those days Invasive, “they have no solution”, since they were in the hands of Chinese operators who should have arrived on the island and did not.
The problems have accumulated in such a way this 2022 that there is even a lack of marabou, a species that is characterized by being invasive. The province began a planting program to fill the gap, but the newspaper reported in February that there are 3,724 hectares planned for it, of which only 307 had been planted.
Cuba closed in 2021 the worst harvest in its history in more than a century, surpassing the previous year, which had also set a record, and Ciego de Ávila barely met 11% of the forecasts, that is, a total of 200,000 tons of cane remained uncollected.
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