Greetings from team Eston!
Christmas decorations are going up in the shopping centres, November is upon us and the end of the year is rapidly approaching!
A colleague I once worked with often compared this time of the year in a sugar mill with running the final stretch of a marathon, with the finish at the top of a very long hill. That being said it is a really vital time for us as we chase season end targets and do our utmost best in achieving a level of performance that will lay a good foundation for the first quarter of the new financial year.
Reflecting on the year past
- Both sites have performed well from a SHERQ perspective – focused efforts are in place to see us through to season end and ensuring we are adequately prepared for the forthcoming off-crop.
- COVID-19 has continued to impact the way we operate, having now been in over 18 months of varying degrees of lockdown. Our workforce has quickly stepped up to the challenge of the new ways of doing life in this Covid-19 era, despite many having lost loved ones and colleagues through this period. The roll out of vaccinations at Illovo has been positive with many of our employees across our respective sites now fully vaccinated.
- The civil unrest in KZN mid-year resulted in a loss of production in excess of one week for both the syrup plant and the mill but on a positive note, we were extremely grateful to the local communities at both sites in the way that they protected our operations during this period.
- Cane supply is plentiful with all three mills being faced with a bumper crop – this combined with some below par time efficiencies has resulted in an excessive carry over situation. Eston be will running through to the 15th of December to try and maximise as much crush opportunity as possible.
Performance perspective
We have seen some positives as follows:
- Improvements in A&B exhaustions
- Recommissioning of the reheater
- Implementation of recoveries coaches (coaching across all of levels of the mill operations)
- Despite the above, there is still further improvement required in terms of us achieving our recovery ambitions.
Electricity sales agreement
It is very pleasing to announce that we have made some significant strides in terms of achieving grid code compliance and getting agreements signed. We are in the final stages of going to market on this project, however as of this November, we should be in a position to net meter as an interim arrangement. A Big shout out to Paolo and the legal team in getting us this far!!
Preparations for the off-crop programme are in full swing, with plans finalised and a lot of equipment on order.
- The earthworks have begun for the installation of a 35,000 ton molasses storage bladder. This is a R56m investment that will benefit Illovo Sugar South Africa, enabling the Merebank distillery to run at optimal capacity throughout the year. The bladder will also replace the current third party storage tanks which will no longer be available for our use from September 2022. The project commenced in September 2021 and will be completed by August 2022.
Site business plans
Both sites are currently in the process of rolling out site business plans, ensuring alignment with our main focus areas for the following period as follows:
- Improved recoveries
- Sugar quality improvement – meeting the demand of the brown sugar pack at Eston.
- Achieve cane crush target
- Syrup market demand being met
- Continuous embedding of operating model
- All of the above are to be achieved with a sustained SHERQ performance.
On behalf of the Eston operations, I would like to take this opportunity to wish all of the ISSA businesses a safe and successful run in to the year end, and to my sugar mill colleagues, wishing you the very best for the off-crop season ahead!