Nation's largest sugar refinery coming to La.

Construction is now under way on the largest sugar refinery in the United States, one that will refine more than 100 million tons of sugar per year and employ more than 500 people at its location near Gramercy.

Three companies have partnered to bring this refinery to life; Sugar Growers and Refiners, Inc., Cargill and Imperial Sugar. It's the first time these companies have collaborated on such a project.

"This will be the first new refinery built in the last century and it will be state of the art, a world class facility," said Allen Wilits, president of Cargill Corn Milling. "Cargill's bringing the technology to do that, so it will have very strong competitive power once the refinery is fully operational."

John Sheptor, president and CEO of Imperial Sugar, said it's a natural continuation of a strong Louisiana tradition.

"The sugar business at this site since 1902 has been built by generations of South Louisiana families," Sheptor said. "That's what this is all about. This is not only about the production of sugar for consumers. This is about families who have given generations to this industry."

Lonnie Champagne, who represents the Louisiana sugar growers in the partnership, said the refinery is not a luxury, but a necessity.

"It's critical to the survival of the sugar industry in Louisiana," Champagne said. "We've been in sugar for 200 years and our leaders saw that to get to the next generation, we would have to be integrated from the fields all the way to the consumers' table."

With Imperial Sugar's existing facility, producers will have a "one-stop shop" where sugarcane is refined, bagged and sold.

"This really allows us to work directly with 700 cane growers to allow them to go directly to the end consumer to add value to their farming operations, so we really see it as a win-win for everyone that's involved," Wilits said.

The refinery comes at a time when there's a lot more optimism in the sugar industry, with prices hovering near 30 cents a pound.

"For the last 20 years, we've been living off the same 20 cents," Champagne said. "When we made the initial pitch in 2006, we were coming off of the effects of Hurricane Katrina. Who knew today the prices would be at 30-year highs?

"It does help tremendously to be able to do that," he added. "We hope to be able to pay for the refinery and return more to our growers in the near future."

The refinery will help the future of Gramercy as well.

"We're talking about more than 1,500 jobs when you look at a facility and a process of this nature," Sheptor said. "Every job created inside of the fence line creates seven jobs outside of the fence line. So, in total we're talking about more than 10,000 families who are included in this industry."

The facility is expected to be operational by 2011.

source: dailyworld