Sugar for the Middle Kingdom

Construction of the Dafeng refinery is reaching its final stage

As China continues to grow, its wealth is increasing. The rising demand for sugar is evidence of this development and the reason why the country’s processing capacities need to be expanded. BMA is delighted to help – with engineering services and equipment for a new refinery at Dafeng.

The acclaimed analysts from F.O. Licht have forecast domestic sugar production of 9.5m tons from cane alone for the current campaign, as well as 1m tons from sugar beet. But although that makes China one of the world’s largest sugar producers, domestic demand far exceeds production. Estimates suggest that Chinese sugar consumption will rise from 17.6m tons this year to 19.4m tons in 2021.

Refinery for imported raw sugar

As agricultural land for growing sugar cane and beet is disappearing and the rural population is moving to the cities, new ways of meeting demand have to be found. Whatever the country cannot produce itself or take from its own reserves is therefore increasingly imported in the form of raw sugar. This sugar will be processed in the new refinery that is taking shape in the Chinese port of Dafeng in Jiangsu province, about 250 km north of Shanghai as the crow flies – with the help of BMA.

First basic, then detailed engineering: this second planning step for the plant was completed in Braunschweig, in close coordination with our customer, Dafeng Yinmore Sugar Corporation Ltd. The task of developing the piping design for the factory’s main process including a 3D model was assigned to our engineers at BMA Russia. And following smooth collaboration between Braunschweig and Voronezh, this work is also nearing completion. Dafeng Yinmore Sugar, the general contractor Haisum Engineering and BMA have now signed the contracts for supply of the key equipment for the core process and for providing supervisory staff during assembly and commissioning. Under the contract for equipment, we will supply the following: