Despite the Differences, B.S.I Hopes to Reach an Agreement by December Nineteenth

Shawn Chavarria

There have been some demands that the B.S.C.F.A has made on A.S.R/B.S.I., to furnish financial documents that the company does not feel it is obliged to provide since those documents do not fall within the ambit of the commercial agreement by which both parties operate with each other. But despite these fundamental differences and the discord that the two sides have, B.S.I’s Director of Finance, Shawn Chavarria says there is hope that they can work through it and start on time with the next crop.

Shawn Chavarria, Director of Finance, A.S.R./B.S.I.

“Initially how we started these negotiations, we wanted to continue with the existing agreement, and they wanted to move to a sixty-forty value-share so that we move away from this structure. So we decided okay, we’re fully prepared to go and look at a sixty-forty formula so that we move away from this negative conjecture. So we presented a proposal to the B.S.C.F.A. achieving that objective. The main difference between our proposal and the B.S.C.F.A’s that when it comes to export direct consumption sugar, because they don’t want a manufacturing allowance and to be sharing in that cost, then we take that, we assume all the risks, all the shipping costs related to that, and we value that sugar as raw sugar – same sixty-forty, but they’ve also rejected that. So we’re now at the point now where really I think the B.S.C.F.A. keeps moving the goal post. If B.S.C.F.A would want to see, say for example, the invoices for the raw sugar shipments, what we sold, they can have that because the biggest component of that is the sales contract. What they want if it is a matter that, say they want to get involved in our operations and see what is our costs within the mill, then that’s a step beyond the commercial agreement because then that is coming from our thirty-five percent shares. Everything that’s related to how we come up with the Net Strip Value, that’s part of the equation and the commercial agreement stipulates what we need to provide. I think it’s in everyone’s interest to have a crop. We certainly don’t want to disadvantage farmers. We want farmers’ cane, so we just want to work with all associations and try to have a successful crop for the upcoming year.”