Universal Robina unit opens new sugar mill in Negros Occidental

Gokongwei-led food giant Universal Robina Corp. (URC) said Tuesday its sugar and renewables subsidiary SONEDCO has inaugurated a new sugar mill in Kabankalan City, in Negros Occidental to increase its sugar output.

In a statement, URC said the new sugar mill can process up to 6,000 metric tons of canes per day.

This will increase SONEDCO’s total milling capacity to 14,000 tons of canes per day, and make URC's capacity reach 40,000 tons of canes per day.

The project began in April 2017.

The new mills' full commercial operations are set to start during the 2019-2020 crop year.

“The inauguration of the new mill marks the high point of our 30 years in the sugar business. It fulfills our commitment to serve sugar cane farmers with a mill that renders better sugar recovery from their canes and utilizes lower energy cost, so that the consumers will be provided with good-quality sugar at fair and reasonable prices,” Renato Cabati, vice president and business unit general manager of URC’s Sugar and Renewables Group, said.

URC said it decided to expand SONEDCO’s capacity to cover the growing volume of sugar canes that needed to be milled in Kabankalan and elsewhere in Negros Occidental.

SONEDCO produces refined sugar used by URC’s branded consumer foods division for its Great Taste coffee, C2, biscuits, candies and other sweetened products.

It also supplies bottler’s grade refined sugar to other beverage companies.

The new mill was designed and supplied by Sutech Engineering of Thailand.

The latest technology in planetary gears and electric motors that drive the mill were supplied by Japan’s Sumitomo Drive Technologies, according to URC.

URC operates six sugar mills and refineries across the country with a combined output of 40,000 tons of sugar cane and 32,000 bags of refined sugar per day.

SONEDCO also has a biomass-fired cogeneration plant with a capacity of 46 megawatts exporting power to the national grid using bagasse, a byproduct of sugar milling, as fuel.

URC acquired SONEDCO in 1988.

URC is the country’s top producer of raw sugar, with a total output of 417,000 metric tons per year accounting for 17 percent of total domestic production

It is the third largest supplier of refined sugar, with actual production of 2.9 million bags annually. —Ted Cordero/KG, GMA News