A $50 million to $80 million investment in bio-refining can help Barbados reverse losses in its sugar industry and turn a neat profit.That’s the assessment of Dr E. Kendall Pye, whose company has been asked to identify a range of high-value products to help Barbados increase earnings from the sugar cane industry.Pye, chief scientific officer of Canada’s Lignol Energy Corporation, told the SATURDAY SUN yesterday that against a backdrop of losses of cane lands, cane production, sugar output and sugar revenues, Barbados needs to invest in technologies to produce a range of high-paying goods.He listed the fuel alcohol ethanol, lignin, a complex chemical compound used as a binder in particle board and other product, as well furfural – used in making resins – and acetic acids among the new items that could be produced from local sugar cane.He calculated that they could bring Barbados much more revenue than bulk sugar exports do.“My guess is that (the capital needs of bio-refining) are going to be something in the order of $50 million to $60 million, maybe $80 million . . . ,” he said. “This is if you can exploit as much as possible the existing (factory) infrastructure.” As they now stand local sugar factories cannot make the “new” products, he pointed out.“But, on the other hand, you can use parts of the factories – the steam, power production, the infrastructure, the roadways, maybe the buildings and water supply,” he explained. “All of these things can reduce the capital needed (for the bio-engineering project).”Pye added: “The sugar factory is now supporting an industry that is losing money. So if you can put capital into that and turn that into a money-making industry, that’s important.”Pye made the comments at Hilton Barbados after addressing sugar industry people, including cane growers, about his findings, under the agreement between the Barbados Sugar Industry Limited (BSIL) and his company.BSIL chairman Dr Attlee Brathwaite termed the meeting “very useful”.
