Omnicane of Mauritius Sees 36% Boost in Sugar Output on Refinery

Omnicane Ltd., Mauritius’s largest sugar producer by volume, said production of the sweetener may rise as much as 36 percent this year after the company boosted its refinery capacity, according to Chief Executive Officer Jacques d’Unienville.

The La Baraque-based refinery will process about 140,000 metric tons of white sugar in 2011 compared with 102,921 tons last year, he said in an April 8 interview in the capital, Port Louis.

The company will invest another 200 million rupees ($7.2 million) this year on its conditioning storage silos, he said. This will bring total investment in the refinery to 1.6 billion rupees since 2009 and will increase capacity to 190,000 tons.

The higher output may help its sugar unit return to profit, d’Unienville said. Omnicane said on March 30 that its sugar division made a loss of 81.5 million rupees in full-year 2010 on lower revenue and higher employee costs. Company profit fell 3.7 percent to 248.9 million rupees.

Omnicane, which also produces electricity, plans to start building a 15-million liter a year ethanol plant in June, while focus on improving efficiency in all its units will probably boost revenue by about 10 percent a year for the next five years, d’Unienville said.

“We are operating a completely different business model compared to a decade ago as the industry has evolved away from a raw sugar making,” he said.