The Fiji Sugar Corporation (FSC) says a broken cane carrier head shaft forced the temporary stoppage of the Rarawai mill in Ba over the weekend.
FSC chief executive officer Graham Clark said the breakdown resulted in a long queue of lorries at the Lautoka mill recently.
Frustrated lorry drivers told this newspaper they had to wait at the mill for more than 24 hours to off-load cane.
Others claimed the issue could not be linked to the weekend issue because the lorry pile-up had been continuing for the past two weeks. In response, Mr Clark refuted the claim.
He said the Lautoka mill had only received lorries from Ba since the weekend because of the Rarawai mill stoppages last Saturday. “Rarawai has been crushing normally since yesterday so this pressure will decline,” he said.
“The main cane carrier head shaft (which failed a week ago) broke again on Friday evening resulting in a full factory shutdown.”
Mr Clark said Rarawai mill’s operations stopped to allow the team to “properly stiffen and strengthen the repair work” and during that time cane lorries were diverted to Lautoka.
He said Rarawai resumed operations last Sunday afternoon and had crushed steadily since, with the head shaft being closely monitored by the factory team.
Mr Clark added that a new shaft was being fabricated at the Lautoka workshop and would be fitted next week.
He said Rarawai crushed a total of 20,818 tonnes of cane for the week and produced 1731 tonnes of sugar at a tonnes cane to sugar ratio of 12.
Mr Clark said cane quality remained a concern because burnt cane increased to 54 per cent compared with 43 per cent for the past week.
