Bingera joins the crush
THE Bingera sugar mill is back in action after it was badly damaged by a fire in May.
Bundaberg Sugar general manager operations David Pickering said the mill started crushing, as planned after the fire, on July 21.
He said the cost of repairing the damage was heading towards the $3 million mark.
"There are still some building repairs to be done but we concentrated on getting operational," he said.
Bundaberg Sugar expected to crush about 1.45 million tonnes of cane this season.
Bingera mill crushes most of the cane on the north side of the river, but a small amount is trucked to the company's Millaquin mill.
July 4 was the original date for Bingera mill to start crushing, but Mr Pickering said after starting late it would finish a bit later than planned.
"Over the weekends we will crush a bit extra at Bingera, so that will shave some time off," he said.
Mr Pickering said Bingera had crushed about 70,000 tonnes of cane so far since it got going.
"We've bedded in and settled down all the new equipment," he said.
"The first week was pretty hectic, but we still crushed 30,000 tonnes."
