Dubai’s Al Khaleej Sugar aims to increase production at its sugar refinery this year, with competition from India curtailed by bad weather in the South Asian country, its managing director said on Tuesday.
Jamal Al Ghurair said on the sidelines of the annual Dubai sugar conference that its refinery at Jebel Ali in Dubai was operating at 40% of capacity last year with production of about 600,000 metric tons, but was aiming if possible to produce up to 1.5 million tons this year.
The refinery’s normal capacity is 1.5 million tons although it can produce more refined sugar if demand is strong. In 2017 it produced a record 1.87 million tons.
Al Ghurair said India had stopped exporting because of bad weather and this had created more demand, at least temporarily.
The International Sugar Organization last month forecast that Indian sugar production would fall to 31.7 million tons in 2023/24, down from 32.8 million in the prior season and 35.6 million in 2021/22.
Al Ghurair said the company was importing all its raw sugar from Brazil at the moment while the main markets for its refined sugar were East Africa, the Far East and the Middle East.
The company exports 85% of production.
He said the white sugar market needed to be tighter to enable the refinery to operate at full capacity.
“It’s normal. We want it to be tight but it’s not tight,” he said.