Sucro Sugar Refinery

The sweet things in life… well, they are sweet. However, in a refinery, it can be ruthless. Just like too much sugar can corrode our teeth, high concentrations of sugars processed in refineries accelerate corrosion and quietly consume the steel that holds an operation together.

So, when Sucro Can Sourcing, an American sugar company, set out to build Canada’s largest refinery, it faced a known adversary: the corrosive liquids and vapors released during sugar refining. Stainless steel and composites can be right for process equipment, but they don’t make financial sense for the hundreds of tons of structural steel in the buildings themselves. In addition to meeting the corrosion challenges, the solution also had to satisfy stringent regulatory food-safety requirements, including HACCP food-processing management criteria.

Rising on Hamilton Harbor, the refinery will receive raw organic cane sugar directly off ships arriving from South America. From there, it will feed Ontario’s $48 billion food-manufacturing industry – supplying ingredients for everything from soda pop to granola bars and ice cream. The refinery will meet growing demand for real organic cane sugar over corn- or beet-based sweeteners.

Sucro needed a high-performance, cost effective, and long-lasting solution – hot-dip galvanizing was a natural fit. Backed by more than 150 years of proven performance, HDG offered the durability the site demanded without premium-material costs. Close coordination among the fabricator, engineer, and galvanizer ensured the steel was detailed for galvanizing, high-quality, and processed in truckload quantities efficiently.

The galvanizer’s computer-controlled material-handling system ensured every piece of structural steel was delivered to the site on time with proper identification for fast erection. Automated immersion and process controls deliver consistent coating quality.

In the end, the entire 1,680-ton steel structure (including accessories such as railings, stairways etc.) was hot-dip galvanized. The payoff was decisive: rapid turnaround, dramatically longer service life, and remarkably, a lower initial cost than paint systems. For a facility that relies on sugar – that was sweetest advantage of all.