Aksu sugar plant will open ahead of schedule

Aksu Sugar Plant, once the largest producer of beet sugar in the country, will be reanimated this year.

It is expected that in the first year of operation the enterprise will process 100 thousand tons of beets, and subsequently, after modernization, will increase productivity up to 300-350 thousand tons per season.

Once it was the largest enterprise for the production of sugar in the country, it processed 300-350 thousand tons of beets per year, but after the plant was laid. After resolving financial issues, the opening of the plant was planned for December, but then they decided to start working in late October.

Vladimir Yushkov, chief engineer of the Aksu sugar plant:

- If we go under the frost. Well, the big pipelines will not freeze, there, with a diameter of 200-300, and a smaller diameter, you know, they just freeze everything, burst and everything, and we will be killed. Secondly, the beets, too, the faster the plant will process the beets, the less there will be losses during storage. It is also not stored for a long time, it must be recycled.

Today, repair work is 75% complete. But the field for storing beets will be ready in September.

  Adilkhan Sahari, correspondent:

- This equipment is 50 years old. It is already worn out, but still able to work for several years. Starting next year, a phased modernization of the plant will begin. New equipment will be delivered from Russia, Switzerland, Ukraine.

Talgat Baikurishev, head of the farm:

- Many stopped planting beets, because there was no sale. A couple of years ago, I earned the Koksu Plant, but it’s very far to carry there, 220 kilometers from our village. And this is a big expense. If Aksu Plant is launched, then there will be a celebration for all local beet growers. I am sure, then all the local peasants will grow beets, even those who have never done this.

Today, 90% of sugar is imported from abroad. The opening of the plant is, first of all, new opportunities for the development of sugar beet production in Kazakhstan.