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Published on December 8, 2007

The mill, which can handle 18,000 tonnes of sugar cane a day, will replace one in Uttaradit province. The mill, to be overseen by Cristalla, is expected to be ready ahead of the 2010-11 harvest season.

Panot Sirivadhanabhakdi, executive assistant to the president of Plantheon, said the new location would accommodate two components: a sugar mill and a power plant. The sugar mill will be constructed with energy-saving technology and a high-efficiency wastewater-management system. The treated water can be released into natural water sources or recycled in sugar-plantation fields.

Meanwhile, the power plant will be fuelled by sugar-molasses and -cane waste. "Some of the electricity will be used in the sugar mill, with the rest sold to the Provincial Electricity Authority as part of the small-power-producer scheme," Panot said.

Plantheon was established in 2004 to promote the planting of economic crops and run four sugar mills, in Chiang Mai, Uttaradit, Suphan Buri and Chon Buri provinces. The Uttaradit plant has been relocated to Sukhothai because of the greater supply of sugar cane and the absence of a sugar mill there. With the new mill, farmers will no longer need to transport their crops to mills in other provinces.

The Sukhothai mill expects to spend about Bt2 billion to buy more than 2 million tonnes of sugar cane a year from Sukhothai farmers.

Panot cited a survey that showed farmers grew sugar cane on 121,435 rai in the 2005-06 harvest. He said that area was below the new mill's capacity, so Plantheon intends to introduce new technology to increase yields per rai and promote the crop to new farmers, in order to ensure sufficient supply for the new mill.

Plantheon is a unit of the TCC Group, which operates in four main areas: beverages (Thai Beverage), real estate, industrial manufacturing and insurance.

The Nation