Floods hit Sumatra rubber factories, plantations
Floods hit Sumatra rubber factories, plantations
Grace Nirang, Reuters, Jakarta
Floods have inundated some rubber factories and plantations in
Indonesia's top rubber growing area of North Sumatra, destroying
stocks and disrupting supplies, industry sources said on
Thursday.
Flooding triggered by days of torrential rains hit North
Sumatra in the last week, leaving at least three people dead and
forcing thousands more to flee their homes, officials said.
"Many rubber factories, mostly those located along rivers,
with their rubber stocks are inundated," Suharto Honggokusumo,
executive director of the Indonesian Rubber Association
(Gapkindo), told Reuters.
"They are suffering a big loss because the rubber stocks
affected have to be reprocessed, not to mention the damage of
their equipment. We are still assessing the damage," he said,
adding that Gapkindo's members in North Sumatra met on Thursday
to discuss the damage.
One rubber trader in Medan, the capital of North Sumatra, said
heavy rains had forced tappers to halt activities.
"I think these floods can halve this month's output," the
trader told Reuters from Medan, some 1,425 (885 miles) northwest
of Jakarta.
North Sumatra is Indonesia's biggest producing area of rubber
and palm oil. It also produces coffee and cocoa.
Indonesia is the world's second largest producer of rubber and
palm oil, the third for cocoa and the fourth for coffee.
The floods have also disrupted transportation from plantations
to processing plants and made oil palm fresh fruit bunches wet
and mouldy.
"The roads are full of mud...trucks bringing fresh fruit
bunches cannot reach processing plants while those from plants
cannot go to port. The heavy rains and high seas have also
disrupted shipments," Derom Bangun, chairman of the Indonesian
Palm Oil Producers Association (GAPKI), told Reuters.
Officials at Belawan, the main palm oil export port, said
shipments had been disrupted after a dredger sank at the port due
to high seas.
"The dredger is blocking the entrance to the port. We are
trying our best to move it but it is difficult because of the
high seas," Belawan administrator Tampa Napitupulu told Reuters
from the port near Medan.
Palm oil traders in Medan said some export shipments to China
and Europe were halted because vessels could not enter the port.
"Big ships cannot anchor at the port. Some exporters are
thinking of using small ships to bring the oil to the bigger
ships outside Belawan," one palm oil trader in Medan said.
Coffee traders said rains and floods so far have had no big
impact on coffee trees since the arabica harvest in the province
has ended last month and flowering for the next harvest has not
started.
"The market is also very quiet because of New Year, no
shipments so far," one trader said.