KARACHI, March 17: Shakarganj Mills Limited at Punjab, was the first to begin crushing sugarcane on October 7.

The early start gave it the advantage to be able to crush the largest quantity of 1.265 million tons of sugarcane and produce 90,869 tons of sugar, which represented the highest among all 76 sugar mills in the country, a fortnightly mill-wise statement up to February 28, by Pakistan Sugar Mills Association, issued to the Karachi Stock Exchange showed.

The only other sugar mill to begin crushing in the month of October was Kohinoor, which started crushing cane on October 29 and produced 34,735 tons of sugar from 471,735 tons of cane at sucrose recovery of 7.45 per cent.

The remaining 36 sugar mills in Punjab, all started crushing sugarcane in the month of November with Adam Sugar Mills taking the lead on November 3, followed by Crescent Sugar Mills that began crushing from November 4. Hamza Sugar with production at 72,492 tons and Shahtaj Sugar with output measuring 70,810 tons were the other leading sugar producers among the mills in Punjab, up to the date of report.

None of the 27 operative sugar mills in Sindh had begun crushing in October. The first to start crushing cane was Khairpur Sugar Mills, which started as late as on November 24 and last to begin crushing was Faran Sugar Mills, which began on January 1, 2003. Dewan Sugar Mills (the starting date of which has not been mentioned) crushed 553,934 tons of sugarcane, to produce the highest 52,660 tons of sugar in Sindh, at a high sucrose recovery of 9.82 per cent. Sindhabadgar Sugar Mills, which began crushing on December 20, produced 24,535 tons of sugar, from 249,840 tons of sugarcane at the highest recovery percentage at 10.09 per cent among all the sugar mills in the country. None of the sugar mills in Punjab could go to the sucrose recovery at 10 per cent, the highest being 9.47 per cent achieved by Shahtaj Sugar.

All five sugar mills in NWFP started crushing sugarcane between November 14 and November 23.