A successful première: first centrifugal commissioning in Malaysia with online support

BMA has traditionally been a major partner for the Malaysian sugar industry. With the MSM Group, for instance, we have been doing business for more than 25 years. We’re also proud of our successful collaboration with both plants of the Central Sugars Refinery (CSR).

CSR has two refineries, Gula Padang Terap (GPT) and Central Sugars Refinery Shah Alam (SA), the latter being the larger plant. Together they have a processing capacity of about 2,500 t/d. 

CSR was founded in 1965 and started operation of its refinery at Shah Alam Selangor as United Malay State Sugar Industries (UMSSI). Since then, the refinery’s processing capacity for raw sugar melting has increased from 150 to currently 1,800 t/d. The company can look back on a long history of success. With its own brand CSR, it is a market leader in Malaysia, known for excellent quality and reliable service. 

Malaysia has a long tradition as a sugar producer – in fact, most of today’s refineries started out as cane sugar factories. But because of a lack of human resources for the cane sugar harvest, the sugar industry had to switch to refinery operation. Sugar cane fields were turned into rubber tree plantations. Today, all sugar is produced from imported raw sugar, which is processed into high-quality refined sugar for the domestic market and for export. 

As part of its 2018 modernisation and optimisation programme, GPT initially opted for installation of a continuous BMA K3300 centrifugal for C product. BMA later installed two additional K3300 machines in the same station, but these were for higher-quality products.

The latest order was for two E1810 batch centrifugals for R1 product from BMA, to replace a number of small machines that were quite old. The project started in 2020 and was completed with the successful commissioning of the new centrifugals in early 2021. 

Because of the corona pandemic and the strict quarantine rules, it would have been very difficult for BMA staff to travel to Malaysia at the time. Fortunately, BMA could offer its customer an innovative solution: remote supervision of the site acceptance test and commissioning, and during the first start-up of the plant. GPT were more than happy to seize this opportunity, as they were keen to start operation as soon as possible.

With the help of our local partners, Asiatic Engineering, additional support from the technical teams of Rockwell and ABB, and the great participation of our customer, our first commissioning of a centrifugal with remote access in Malaysia was a resounding success.