The Chief Operating Officer of the Buttala Pelawatte Sugar Factory, owned by the Lanka Sugar Company, said that the operation of the factory is at risk due to the non-sale of sugar produced and the drop in ethanol prices.
About sixteen thousand five hundred metric tons of sugar have been piled up in warehouses due to unsold sugar. Currently, the wholesale price of a kilo of sugar is two hundred and eighteen rupees. Earlier, a liter of ethanol increased to one thousand two hundred rupees, but now the price of a liter has dropped to five hundred and eighty rupees, so all the ethanol has been sold.
In that situation, there is no question about the sale of ethanol produced.
However, the price obtained from ethanol has decreased due to the drop. The bank overdraft of the institution is about Rs. 11.2 billion. It has to pay Rs. 3 billion including the money to be sent to the Employees’ Provident Fund and the Employees’ Trust Fund.
At present, sugarcane cutting has started for this season and if the sugar in the warehouses is not sold, there will be no storage facilities to store the sugar produced in the future.