OREANDA-NEWS On 05 October was announced, that ASTARTA's regional production units in Poltava, Vinnytsia and Khmelnytsky regions interface within the current sugar production campaign. Exact to the schedule, units harvest sugar beet and deliver it to mills for further processing. Weather conditions are favorable for beet harvesting in the regions where ASTARTA's production units are situated.

In September, ASTARTA's sugar mills processed around 300 thousand of beet (out of 1.2 mln tons processed in Ukraine in general) and produced around 40 thousand tons of sugar (out of 136 thousand tons of the total Ukrainian output). Average sugar beet yield at ASTARTA's farms was 42 tons per hectare in September (vs. 31 tons per hectare on average in Ukraine).

Technological improvements introduced this year at our sugar plants, including heat circuit improvement, as well as personnel training resulted in a 20-25% cut in natural gas consumption per ton of beet processed in the first weeks of sugar campaign. This modernization also lead to an increase in the mills processing capacity. Sugar content in beet and sugar yield per ton of beet are much better than last year. Every day, ASTARTA's sugar mills process about 20 thousand tons of beet and produce about 3 thousand tons of sugar.

ASTARTA Holding N.V. CEO Viktor Ivanchyk said: "The current sugar campaign has shown again that our strategic decisions to strengthen the vertical integration of our business and to integrate the production process within regional business units were efficient. In general, the restructuring made, as well as the increasing output of in-house sugar beet and continued mills modernization will result in strengthening of our positions in the sugar and agri- markets."