INSTALLED CAPACITY The plant has in its extraction area a processing capacity of 3,500 tons of cane in 24 hrs. In 2007 it will be 4,000 tons in its manufacturing area that can produce at the same time 700 to 800 thousand lbs. of sugar. MANUFACTURING PROCESS IN CHUMBAGUA SUGAR CO. The Chumbagua factory posseses a large scale capacity of cane milling 3,500 t.c./day, during the months of January through June, to process 417.396.31 tons of cane per year.

We have an efficient system of cane washing through water showers and separation of foreign objects.

The technological system is setup as follows:
The cane is received in two different ways:

1. In packages to be raised by the mobile crane that supplies the supply table.
2. By trucks dumping directly to the supply table

The supply table also operates as a cleaning center. Using high pressure water. After cleaning the cane and after washing it effectively, it goes on to a steel belt conductor of variable speed going through a double set of straight blades which then leads to the defibrillator.

It uses 5 four-unit mills in tandem, three mallets and a light feeder. This tandem has the capacity of grinding a maximum of 4000 t.c. a day. With 3.0% pol in the bagasse and an average humidity of 51%.

The cold juice is heated first to 70° C by two Condenser-heaters in the S.A.E. system that receives pure water and sends to the process of sulfatation. These heat interchangers are of tube design with a 1500 pcsc. shield. At 70° C, the juice is sulfated with a tower of plates and later alcalized through an automatic control at a Ph between 7.00 and 7.2 in a good efficiency mixer for adequate preparation of the alcalized juice. It is later heated up to 90° C in a heater that is also of tube design with a 1500 pcsc. shield with vapors from the extraction of the third beaker of the multiple evaporator.

The resulting heating or rectification is done in another similar model heater and characteristics of the previous ones with vapors coming from the pre-evaporator, to come out at 104°C. This alcalized juice goes through two clarifiers operating in parallel, a fast 4500   gallon Door and another Door 444 of 60,000 gal. both with multiple trays, with more than 2 hour retention time, using a flocculant with 5 p.p.m. dosage. The obtained juice is of great quality and low color guarantees the quality of the direct white sugar obtained at 200-250 units ICUMSA color.

The evaporation system is comprised of 5 effects. The first effect is made up of three pre-evaporators, two in parralel and one rotating in cleaning, and 12000 pcsc. each. The second effect results of a 17000 pcsc beaker that extracts vapor for the MCB and MCC basins. The third effect is in a 15000 pcsc. beaker where the vapor extraction occurs for secondary heaters. The last two effects are in a 5000 pcsc. beaker. The first effect is the vapor extractions for the MCA basins, clear juice heaters, heater rectifier of the juice and for the SAE system. The clear juice is pre-heated by two tube and 1500 pcsc shield heaters and then enters the multiple evaporator.

The cane syrup at 60° Bx goes on to the basins that operate with the double seed system,  packaging only the A syrup as direct white. The A masses are purged in non continuous semi  automatic BMA centrifuges with double wash, producing a humid sugar which reaches 0.03%  humidity in the dryer which is sent to the chute to be packaged in 50 Kg. bags.

The energetic system is made up of a 100 ton per hour HPB boiler, at 900 psig and 900° F, which supplies vapor to a 20Mw extraction-condenser turbogenerator which generates 13,800 volts of electricity. The extraction vapor from the turbogenerator at 25 psig is sent to  the pre-evaporators or first effect of the multiple evaporator and to the deareator for the  disoxygenation of the boiler water. The water make-up for the boiler is obtained in two different ways: the first is through the SAE system that consists in the double evaporation and condensation of the water, to obtain chemically pure water, and the second is through an  Inverse Osmosis plant with a capacity of 10 m³/h.

The water system for the condensation of vapors in the turbogenerator is made up of three pumps of 4000 gpm each and a water cooling system through a group of sprays with a semi open circuit. This group also has a second purpose of cooling the water in the condensers during the  sugar manufacturing process.