Floods leave 'huge' impact on Bundaberg Sugar

Bundaberg Sugar says January's floods caused more than $15 million worth of damage to the business.

The company's general manager of operations, David Pickering, says large sections of railway were washed away and it has had to find alternative transport from the mill.

He says this year's sugarcane harvest will be well down on the previous year.

"As far as across our business it's about $15 million of impact and it has had a huge impact," he said.

"The crop at this stage we think might be around one-and-a-half million tonnes, compared to 1.8 million tonnes last year, so it's certainly down and that's for a variety of factors.

"With the big crop last year and the late finish there's less time to grow cane.

"Having said that, things are starting to dry out now to a point where people are being able to start to plant but that won't produce cane for this crop."

He says the recent weather has created good growing conditions but it has been too late to save this year's crop.

"At the mill we were able to get over some of those hurdles a little bit quicker, because it was only the perimeter equipment that was damaged, not the actual main factory," he said.

"At the moment we're just making the most of the fine weather to get our railway line repaired because a lot of that was damaged as well."

Source: ABC News, 4 April 2013