The end of the 2023-2024 sugar campaign marks a complex but strategic transition period for Iscal. Carrying out both a main campaign and a mini-campaign is a challenge we first tackled in 2018-2019. Thanks to our 80,000-ton silo, this operation will now be a regular practice, allowing us to optimize our processes while providing significant benefits to our team.

The pros and cons

The continuity between the main campaign and mini-campaign presents risks, particularly machine clogging and staff fatigue. However, there are numerous advantages: only one start and stop of the machines, a single cleaning cycle, and most importantly, a quieter spring for our employees, giving them more family time. This approach also allows us a long five-month break for maintenance and improvements.

Campaign summary

During the 2023-2024 campaign, we achieved an average production of 11,000 tonnes of beet processed per day for 7 weeks, our best score since 2018. However, we faced challenges, notably a sugar content of only 16.1%, the lowest level in the past ten years. Overall, we processed 1,200,000 tons of beets.

Campaign conclusion

The end of the campaign was particularly complex due to heavy rains that prevented some harvests. The last beets, of lower quality, clogged our purification processes, reducing our average production to 3,800 tons per day over the last three weeks. We have committed to starting the next campaign in mid-September to minimize these risks.

Mini-campaign

The transition between the main campaign and the mini-campaign was complex, but once launched, we maintained stable production. The challenges mainly resulted from the difficult conditions at the end of the main campaign rather than the consecutive running of the two campaigns. We remain convinced of this method and plan to use it again in the next campaign.

Intercampaign

We are currently in the intercampaign period with many renovation projects throughout the plant. We intend to make the most of the five-month break to continue renovating our heat exchangers. After replacing our burners in the boiler, we are also continuing to improve this installation based on the lessons learned from this production cycle. In addition to these two major projects, we are improving our mechanical recompressions and our water treatment plant. Many other projects will keep our teams and subcontractors busy until September.

By Brieuc

administrator