Thread: FL-U.S. Sugar imports Mexican raw for refining

By SUSAN SALISBURY
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
CLEWISTON — In a coals-to-Newcastle move, Mexican sugar is being imported and refined in Florida for the first time, confirms U.S. Sugar Corp.
The raw sugar, known as estandar, is being processed at U.S. Sugar's Clewiston refinery.
It's not unusual for sugar to be imported to other parts of the country. Roughly 1.5 million tons of unrefined sugar is imported into the United States each year, to areas such as Louisiana, New York and the West Coast, said Phillip Hayes, spokesman for American Sugar Alliance, an Arlington, Va.-based trade group.
But foreign sugar never has been imported here, Florida sugar producers say, because growers have kept refineries running: The state is the nation's largest producer of sugar from cane.
"It is unique for them," Hayes said of U.S. Sugar's Mexican imports.
U.S. Sugar Senior Vice President Robert Coker said the Clewiston refinery, expanded three years ago, is breaking production records, allowing the company to take advantage of a provision in the North American Free Trade Agreement. As of Jan. 1, sugar trade between the U.S. and Mexico became completely duty-free.
The company has imported 32,000 metric tons of sugar through the Port of Tampa since May and is expecting another 16,000 metric tons next week, Coker said.
However, officials at competitor Florida Crystals Corp. suggested that U.S. Sugar is importing sugar from Mexico in order to fulfill contracts after its sugar cane harvest here fell short.
"They probably have obligations to meet their contracts. It's probably not that their refinery is working so great," said Florida Crystals Vice President Gaston Cantens.
Given that the sugar must be shipped across the Gulf of Mexico, Cantens points out, "it is a money-losing proposition to import sugar at what they have to pay Mexico and bring it to Florida to refine it, package it and sell it."
Judy Sanchez, a spokeswoman for U.S. Sugar, responds, "This is not sugar to meet our current contracts. This is additional sugar we are bringing in."
Sanchez, though, acknowledged that crops of the past several years have been smaller due to droughts and hurricanes. This year the harvest ran over into May, a month longer than usual.
As for costs, in July, Mexican sugar known as estandar, the type that U.S. Sugar is importing, averaged 23.73 cents a pound, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service. Raw sugar in the U.S. was selling for 23.76 cents a pound.
With refined sugar in the U.S. selling wholesale for 40 cents a pound, up from about 30 cents a pound a year ago, using the Mexican sugar is profitable, Sanchez said.
The imports coincide with U.S. Sugar's announcement that it is selling land to the state in a $1.75 billion deal to restore the Everglades.
U.S. Sugar plans to continue to mill and refine sugar at its Clewiston facilities for another six years.
Jupiter-based sugar industry consultant Mike Scott said that with the state deal pending, the company wants to be as robust as possible, and meeting contracts for sugar production underlines the company's value.
"They will do everything they can to make those contracts viable," Scott said. "If that means bringing in foreign sugar, raw sugar, to refine, they will do whatever they need to do."


http://www.palmbeachpost.com/busines...ugar_0903.html

If there is a sugar refinery in Puerto Rico they could do the same thing.

Oh, great, more crops with sewer water.