Grinding at Portvale Sugar Factory remained on pause yesterday as work continued to fix a mechanical failure since Thursday.
A spokesman for the Barbados Energy and Sugar Company (BESCO) Inc., operators of the Blowers,
St James factory, said engineers were working “around the clock” to complete repairs to one of the mills.
No set timeline was given for this to be completed, but chairman of the Barbados Sugar Industry Ltd, Mark Sealy, said they were expecting normal operations to resume by tomorrow.
“We couldn’t deliver canes yesterday (Friday) and today (Saturday), but they said they should be able to start back (grinding) on Monday. We understand that they had a mechanical issue and we know that they’re working very hard on it and we expect to restart delivering canes on Monday,” he said.
Yesterday afternoon, a large truck was seen leaving the factory laden with about 20 huge sacks of sugar, which a source said was being transported from the silo to one of the warehouses operated by BESCO, prior to being sold.
The 2026 sugar harvest, which finally got going in early April, has been beset with delays related to industrial action by Unity Workers’ Union (UWU) over what it said was the failure of BESCO to recognise it as the rightful bargaining agent for the majority of Portvale workers, as well as working hours of factory personnel.
The union has pointed fingers at BESCO and claimed that mechanical failures contributed to the hold-up in grinding, even as canes lay on the ground waiting to be processed.
BSIL previously stated that the best time to start the harvest was February 15, and that the delay had led to “inferior quality cane with consequent reductions in both sugar quality and tonnage”. (CA)
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