SUGAR PROCESS
CSR is Australia’s largest sugar producer, manufacturing about 40% of the nation’s raw sugar.
CSR Sugar – part of CSR Limited - operates seven sugar mills in North Queensland, crushing about 15 million tonnes of sugarcane to produce about 2.2 million tonnes of raw sugar annually.
CSR Sugar is one of the world’s largest and most efficient raw sugar millers.
Our raw sugar mills produce about 4 per cent of the world’s internationally traded sugar.
CSR Limited is one of Australia’s oldest companies and has manufactured refined sugar for more than 150 years.
CSR Sugar currently owns two mills in the Herbert region around Ingham, north of Townsville, four in the Burdekin region, south of Townsville, and one in the Plane Creek region near Sarina, south of Mackay.
Growing cane
Sugarcane is a type of grass with the ability to trap the sun’s energy and convert that energy into sucrose - another name for sugar.
Sugar is made in the leaves of the cane plant through photosynthesis.
Chlorophyll, the green colouring agent found in leaves, absorbs energy from sunlight and causes carbon dioxide from the air to combine with water drawn up by the roots of the plant.
The result is sugar, which the plant uses to grow and stores as a sweet juice in its fibrous stalks.
Mature cane stands two to four metres high and is usually harvested between June and December, when the sugar content is at its peak.
The full bins are then taken from the paddock to a cane train railway siding, where a mill-owned locomotive will come to collect them and deliver them to the sugar mill.
Sugar milling
All of CSR Sugar’s mills operate under continuous crushing arrangements – 24 hours a day, seven days a week – stopping only for maintenance or due to cane supply interruptions.
Australia has some of the most efficient and technologically advanced sugar mills in the world.
Turning sugarcane into raw sugar
After the cane is harvested it is transported to the mill using CSR’s own rail network. When the cane arrives at the mill the cane is tipped onto a cane carrier, which transports them to a shredder.
The shredder reduces and shreds the cane into fibrous material and ruptures the juice cells. The Juice is then concentrated and crystalised to produce sugar.
Two other products of the process are bagasse and Molasses.
Bagasse is the fibre of the sugar cane, this is used to fuel the boiler the produce the energy to run the plant and also to produce cogeneration electricity (renewable electricity)
Molasses is the syrup that remains at the end of the sugar extraction when it no longer is economically viable to continue to recover the sugar. Molasses has a sugar content of 45-50%. Molasses then becomes the feedstock to produce ethanol.
Cogeneration
Bagasse, the residual fibre left after the sugarcane is crushed to extract the juice, is burnt as a fuel in sugar mill boilers to supply steam and electricity for the milling process.
Surplus bagasse is used to power co-generation plants. CSR produces more than 515 GWh of green energy per year – enough to meet the power needs of more than 47,000 homes. Compared with power generated from fossil fuels, the reduction in carbon dioxide emissions is equivalent to taking 115,000 motor cars off the road.
CSR now produces about 7 per cent of Australia’s target for increased renewable energy production.
Part 2 - "Harvesting Sugarcane"
Part 3 - "Sugarcane Transport"
Part 5 - "Sugar Milling Process"
Part 6 - "Sugar Milling By-Products"
