Mitr Phol sugar business was established as a small family business in Ban Pong District, Ratchaburi Province, producing and trading condensed syrup to sugar mills in 1946. In 1956, the company began to produce its own sugar. In 1983, Mitr Phu Kieo Sugar Mill was constructed in Phu Khiao District, Chaiyaphum Province, with a sugarcane processing capacity of 27,000 tonnes per day. In 1990, Mitr Phol Sugar Mill in Suphanburi Province was established with a processing capacity of 45,500 tonnes per day.
The company expanded its business internationally in 1993 to Guangxi Province, China with four mills. Mitr Phol owns seven sugar mills in Guangxi and with an annual capacity of approximately 10 million tonnes of cane, or approximately 1.3 million tonnes of sugar per year.
In 2006, Mitr Phol broadened its production to Savannakhet Province, Laos and established Mitr Lao Sugar Co., Ltd. to develop sugarcane farming with advanced production technology to export to the European Union. Mitr Phol further expanded its investments to Queensland, Australia.
In Thailand, Mitr Phol has seven sugar mills, with a total processing capacity of 130,500 tons of sugar cane daily. Some mills have refineries attached and produce white sugar.
The group is the largest biomass electricity producer in ASEAN and the largest ethanol producer in ASEAN. Mitr Phol’s subsidiary company Mitr Phol Bio-Fuel Co., Ltd., has four ethanol plants with total capacity of 1,100,000 liters per day in Suphan Buri, Chaiyaphum, Kalasin, and Tak Provinces. Molasses, a waste product from the production of sugar, is used as feed stock to produce ethanol which is used for blending in fuel as gasohol. Mitr Phol Bio-Fuel is Thailand’s largest ethanol producer.
Another Mitr Phol subsidiary is Mitr Phol Bio-Power Co., Ltd. which runs several biomass power plants attached to sugar mills. These plants burn the bagasse from crushed sugar cane in order to power steam turbines to generate the power needed for the mill. Excess electricity is sold to the national power grid.
According to Wikipedia
