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usiness review2009
through cooperation between the countries which helped to build a strong foundation over three decades.
Prior to the construction of the facility, thousands of Guyanese benefited from eye surgeries conducted in Cuba under
the Guyana/Cuba ‘Mission Miracle’ programme. Since its inception in 2006 it has touched all population points in the country
as persons were able to have corrective eye surgeries.
Cuba’s Charge D’ Affaires, Jorge Rodriquez Hernandez praised Guyana for its support of Cuba which dates back to the
time of Dr. Cheddi Jagan. He said the hospital is a reflection of the strong ties between both countries.
On February 9, 2009 the hospital began screening patients for various eye ailments including cataract and pterygium
and thousands of screenings have been done since.
Specialized staff from Cuba including doctors, nurses, pharmacists, administrators and bio-medical technicians will operate
the facility until Guyanese medical students currently undergoing training in Cuba return to serve their country.
August 23, 2009 - New Skeldon Sugar Factory Commissioned
The US$185M state-of-the-art Skeldon Sugar Factory in Berbice
was officially commissioned by Guyana’s President Bharrat
Jagdeo. The new factory in Region Six was conceived as part
of the Guyana Sugar Corporation’s (GuySuco) strategic review
and represents the largest financial investment in the country’s
history. The new factory has the capacity to produce about
120,000 tonnes of raw sugar annually, and is also expected to
convert sugar cane into ethanol. The factory is also expected
to become a provider of electricity which will be sold to the
Guyana Power & Light as an added supply to the national grid.
Recognizing that sugar is Guyana’s most significant foreign
exchange earner ($35B) and one of the largest employers in
the country (20,000 workers), Government has invested heavily
in the sugar sector to reduce production costs and increase
State-of-the-art Skeldon Sugar Factory.
value-added production. The Skeldon factory is an integral part
of this plan.
Features of the new factory
The factory incorporates some of the best technologies from the world of sugar manufacturing. These technologies are
applied to provide a high efficiency manufacturing process that makes the best recovery of the sucrose and the energy
in the raw sugar cane. This energy is harnessed to power the factory in converting the sucrose to sugar crystals and the
surplus energy is used in the national grid. The new factory features a fully automated continuous process, rather than
the traditional intermittent batch process. The use of high steam pressures and temperatures (54 bar and 485 degrees
Celsius) allows a high thermal efficiency to be achieved which makes it possible to consistently produce a high quality
product and is essential in the cogeneration context.
Also, the use of diffusion technology, in place of traditional milling extraction, improves sucrose recovery and reduces
energy consumption and maintenance costs.
Sugar production
The factory can produce about 120,000 tonnes of raw sugar annually, and will require about 1.2 million tonnes of cane
annually, about three times the requirement of the old sugar mill. The additional canes will be produced from about 4,700
hectares of new estate lands in Manarabisi (for a total of over 9,600 hectares) and about 4,200 hectares of new farmers’
lands being developed at locations near the estate and at Moleson Creek. It is expected that private farmers will supply
around 30% of the total canes delivered to the mill.
Future plans for the sugar mill include the conversion of the cane into ethanol, an alternative to fossil fuels. The ethanol
would be exported mainly, although local use is also likely.
The construction of a $1.2B packaging facility at Enmore Sugar Estate is ongoing. This would serve to add value to sugar
being produced at Skeldon.
Power Co-generation
On December 20, 2007, GUYSUCO began supplying co-generated power to the Berbice Grid. The co-generation factory
has the capacity to supply 10MW of electricity daily from one 5.0MW set and two 2.5MW sets.
Power is dispatched to the grid at 13.8kV for the first phase of export and a 69kV transmission link is being installed to
take the full output from Skeldon.
On May 4, 2008 the Skeldon Sugar Modernization Project became the first project in Guyana to be registered with the
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of
the Kyoto Protocol.
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