All is not well with the Guyana Sugar Corporation, and particularly with the new Skeldon Modernisation Plant being constructed at a cost of US$180 million. In fact, the new factory has cost the country more in terms of lost revenue earnings, most of it after a mere three weeks of operation.During the past year, the contractors ran numerous tests, and the results were less than heartening.The new factory is designed to not only boost production at a time when the price cuts introduced by the European Community are beginning to be felt, but also to help reduce the cost of production. The results are far from the intended goal.The authorities passed some 50,000 tonnes of cane through the new mill, but the amount of sugar produced was a mere 400 tonnes. A state-of-the-art factory is expected to convert cane to sugar at a ratio of ten tonnes of cane to a tonne of sugar.The 50,000 tonnes of cane should have produced 5,000 tonnes of sugar. The 4,600- tonne loss cost the industry some US$3 million.A source said that the loss comes at a time when the industry is cash strapped and when it was recently ordered to pay a six per cent increase across-the-board to sugar workers.Immediately the rate of loss was realised, the authorities brought back the old Skeldon factory into operation.But even this is not helping the situation, since the plan was to shut down the old plant to make way for the new plant. The authorities had halted all maintenance to the old factory, with the result that the equipment is so run down that it has taken everything possible to get the old plant back into operation.But the old plant is about 70 per cent efficient, which means that the rate at which it converts cane to sugar is even lower than the given ten-to-one ratio. Ten tonnes of cane at the old factory would yield 1,400 pounds of sugar instead of 2,000 pounds (one tonne); a loss that is further hurting the industry.And while the new plant is failing to convert cane to the required tonnage of sugar, the Guyana Sugar Corporation has also been faced with a massive loss in the cane cultivation area, resulting in a further loss of some GY$1.1 billion.A person close to the sugar company said that the sugar company could not mill cane that was some 80 weeks old and with little sucrose content. This cane had been left in the ground during the move to the new factory, and GuySuCo will have to throw it away.The cane was spread over some 1,400 hectares (3,NFL Jerseys Wholesale,600 acres) which would have yielded a further 200,000 tonnes of cane,China NFL Jerseys, which would have produced 20,000 tonnes of sugar.But the authorities had no option but to rush the old factory into operation some five weeks ago, in the face of the massive losses.The source said that the longer the new factory takes to come on stream, even more cane is going to waste. The factory is not likely to begin grinding before March,Wholesale Jerseys China, so the cane in the ground would age by a further 12 to 14 weeks, losing sucrose content with each passing day.The loss does not stop at the cane-to-sugar conversion and at the cane that had to be dumped because it had become useless.?Further,China NFL Jerseys, of the two cane dumpers acquired from an American company to add to the equipment at the new Skeldon factory,NFL Jerseys China, only one is operational. The cane dumpers lift the cane from the punt and feed it to the mill. The design of the American cane dumpers was all wrong. The engineers attached to Booker Tate refused to consult with the Chinese engineers in this area, another source said.The Chinese have said that they are more comfortable with the local engineers than with the expatriate ones who form part of the Booker Tate team.? Booker Tate,Wholesale Jerseys, the company that currently holds the management contract, therefore refused to consult with the Chinese when it set about importing the cane dumpers at a cost of US$4.8 million.The cane dumper was expected to feed 350 tonnes of cane per hour, but the American dumpers are feeding cane at a rate of 175 tonnes per hour — only some 50 per cent of the required operational capability.No official of the sugar company was available to comment on these shortcomings.However, President Bharrat Jagdeo told the press last week that, come the new year, there would be management changes at the sugar company.