WAILUKU >> Equipment at the closed Paia Mill is being dismantled and sent to a buyer in the Philippines, former owner Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Co. said yesterday. Paia Mill equipment being
shipped to Philippine buyer
Star-Bulletin staff
Crystal Sugar is shipping the equipment, including the boiler, to one of its plants in the Bukidnon province of central Mindanao island, said its agent, Ernest Bouvet.
Bouvet said Crystal Sugar, owned by a Philippine family, was the same company that bought equipment at the defunct Honokaa Sugar Mill on the Big Island.
Bouvet, a former manager at Hamakua Sugar Co., said the dismantling should take about 2 1/2 months.
Hawaiian Commercial, a subsidiary of Alexander & Baldwin Inc., shut down the Paia Mill in September 2000 as a cost-cutting measure and has been relying on its Puunene Mill to process sugar cane on about 37,000 acres of Maui land.
Hawaiian Commercial spokeswoman Linda Howe said the industrial buildings at Paia will remain, and no decision has been made about their future.
The buyer and seller declined to disclose the price of the equipment.
Bouvet said that last year, Crystal Sugar produced 110,000 metric tons of sugar and is trying to increase its output by 25 percent.
County of Hawaii
